She/They

The music that had swelled at your arrival promptly fizzled out as everyone assessed the severity of the situation, though all became petrified to make a move.

“Howdy there, Djarin,” the outlaw casually greeted your fiancé at the end of the humble church, standing beside the preacher, his pale features worsening by the second, “beautiful day you picked here for a wedding.”

“Miller!” Din gasped, his wild eyes briefly fluttering to the silent tears streaming down your face before his glare settled back upon the crook, “you’re–”

“Still alive?” Miller filled in with the cock of his eyebrow, “you know, if you’re gonna play with fire, you gotta do it right, have the guts to stand there and watch everything burn, not run off before the job is done.”

“Please, Joel,” your fiancé raised up both of his hands in a plea, “we can work this out, just put down the gun.”

“Give me the fucking money,” Joel instead growled, “I know you have it, so hand it over. It’s the very least you can do after everything.”

“I–…” Din hesitated, his eyes briefly flickering to your horrified features before he uttered, “I can’t.”

A scoff promptly rumbled in the outlaw’s broad chest, “no, yeah, that part is crystal clear to me. You don’t wanna give me a single dime of what you owe me, you greedy bastard.”

“No, I mean that I can’t,” he admitted, “I–…I don’t have it…”

“You–, fucking hell…” Joel swiftly sighed, his head momentarily bowing as he swallowed the harsh reality, “alright,” he then murmured before his thumb cocked the revolver aimed at your head.

 “Wait! Wait!” Din instantly panicked at the bone-chilling click, his palms soaring up further in a feeble attempt at halting the criminal, “gold! I–I have gold!”

Joel’s eyes narrowed to a squint before he muttered, “fine, I can work with that,” before he briefly gestured with the barrel of his gun, “go get it.”

“It’s not here, it’s in a mine out west.”

“Seriously?” Joel groaned.

“At least worth double of what I owe you, I swear.”

“So, let me get this right,” the outlaw took a single step closer to your fiancé, dragging you with him, “you want me to believe that you’re sitting on a goldmine and that I should just freely waltz into said mine and pluck out what’s rightfully mine? I’m not a fucking idiot. You just want me out of your hair so that you can run off to the sheriff.”

“I’m not lying, it’s real!” Din swore, “I hired a crew just last week to go out there and break ground!”

Narrowing his eyes, he let your poor fiancé stew a moment in his terror before finally muttering, “alright… I’ll tell you what,” he slowly took a step closer, “I don’t trust as far as I can throw you,” Joel growled, “so I’ll keep a little something as leverage so that I know you won’t go running that rotten mouth of yours,” his grip on you tightened slightly, “if what you claim is true, then I’ll gladly drop your pretty little bride off at the nearest saloon after I’ve gotten my gold,” he vowed calmly, “but if it’s not, well… then I guess you won’t be getting married anymore… unless, of course, corpses are your thing.”

“Wow…” Joel side-eyed you each time you squirmed at every little sound that the night out on the prairie brought, “you really aren’t from around here, are you?”

“No,” you scoffed, slightly offended, “I’m from New York.”

Tying you up with itchy ropes, the outlaw had made you walk beside his horse all during that first day, making you feel like your blistering feet might snap clean off by the time that he had finally stopped for the night. It was right beside a little creek that he had lit a fire. Securing the end of the rope around his own wrist, Joel had settled back against a tree, his other palm hovering against his wide-brimmed hat to tilt it down to shield his eyes from the glow of the small bonfire.

“New York?” his brows knitted together, “well, what in the hell is a city girl like you even doing with a fella like him?”

“Excuse me?” you narrowed your eyes in your kidnapper’s direction.

“Why would he travel all the way up to there just to find a wife? Is there something wrong with him?”

Your mouth promptly fell open at his rude accusation, “nothing’s wrong with him!”

“Other than the obvious, you mean,” he tilted his head.

Still not believing one bit why a ruffian like him would so fiercely loathe a gentleman such as your darling fiancé, you simply rolled your eyes and shared defensively, “my aunt lived down here, and when she passed, I attended the funeral. Turns out, he also knew her, so that was how we became acquainted.”

“Oh, so you met him and then just didn’t leave?”

“No, I went back,” you told him, “but then, not too long after, he travelled all of the way up to New York, just to return a handkerchief I’d misplaced. Or well, that and to ask my father properly for my hand in marriage,” you smiled softly at the memory, “he knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to travel halfway across the country to get it. Takes a certain amount of gumption, and that is admirable if you ask me.”

But instead of swooning at your tale, “no,” Joel instead muttered, “that’s just creepy,” he stated, and when your expression then soured, as if he had just slapped you across the face, he briefly tilted closer to point out, “Miss, the guy hunted you down like a prized cattle.”

“Excuse me, but I don’t think you have any place talking to me about etiquette,” you swiftly motioned to the ropes that restricted your movements.  

A sigh then flowed from the cowboy as he sloped back against the tree trunk, “…look, I may not be a gentleman,” he stated gruffly, “but just know that I have a hell of a reason for doing all of this…”  

When you woke again the next morning, the sight that met your eyes as soon as you fluttered them open caused you to instantly draw in a sharp breath.

Standing on the edge of the nearby stream, you spotted Joel. Dusty button-down tossed to the side, his suspenders, which usually stretched over the dirty white henley he typically wore beneath, hung low and dangled around his thick thighs as he dipped down to splash some more water against his now bare torso. Back turned to you, you watched as the water droplets cascaded down his spine and over the long and gnarly burn scar that marked most of his back, the bottom of it disappearing into the waistband of his sturdy trousers.

When he finally finished bathing and he turned back around, his eyes instantly caught your hypnotised ones, before you heard yourself ask, almost in a whisper, “how did you get that?”

Tugging his undershirt back over his burly frame, he simply grunted in return, “I don’t think you wish to know that answer, Miss…”

Though being ambushed by some bandits on the road wasn’t exactly what you’d had on your wish list, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it granted you just enough of an opening to make for your escape.

However, just as you tried to climb back on the spooked horse, which the outlaw had recently begun to let you ride on with him during the long days on the prairie, you made the grave error of glancing back over your shoulder.

The last remaining bandit had managed to pin Joel down against the dirt, his hands tightly wrapped around your kidnapper’s throat.

Tightening your grasp on the reins, at first your body simply slowed down, but then when you watched Joel’s limbs grow sluggish in their attempts, your frame fully stopped, a sharp curse instead flowing from your lungs as you then found yourself picking up a medium-sized rock nearby before, with all of your might, you brought it down over the back of the opponent’s head.

Though it didn’t knock him out, the blow did stun the guy just enough for his fingers to let go of Joel’s neck, and grant him the opening to slip in and finish the job, clocking him in the face till he passed out cold and joined in the state of the other bandits surrounding them.

Your chest rose and fell rapidly as you found your feet glued to the ground.

Coughing briefly, Joel panted as well as he picked himself up onto his knees. Locating his hat, he dusted it off and placed it back upon his head before he even offered you a glance, “…now, why in the hell would you do a thing like that?”

“A simple thank you would suffice,” you glared back at him as he rose to his feet once more. It wasn’t till now that your regretful actions truly hit you, “fuck…” you hissed quietly and bowed your head just in time to watch as the outlaw caught onto the ropes around you once more. Even without them around your limbs, an escape in the constricting wedding dress you still wore would have been a task and a half.

But then as you waited for him to tether the end of the ropes back around his wrist, you instead watched as the outlaw suddenly began to loosen them.

As you blinked up at him with wide eyes, he simply uttered, “thank you, Miss,” his eyes not meeting your own as he continued to take the ropes off till they snaked from your frame completely.  

“Sir,” you stayed vigilant, “what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, “I can’t let you go yet,” he slowly coiled up the rope in his hand, “you don’t deserve this, none of this is your fault, but I can’t, not yet,” before his gaze finally met your own, “but maybe we could come to an agreement of sorts.”

“An agreement?” your brows furrowed.

Sucking in a breath, he then exhaled, “if you promise not to pull something like that again, then I can agree to keeping these off for good.”

“I–…” you hesitated as your eyes flickered to the ropes in his hands, utterly stunned by the sudden discovery of his good side.

“What? Would you rather stay tied up?”

“No, it’s just–, well, since we’re striking a deal,” you gnawed at your inner cheek, “could I perhaps have something else as well?” you asked, and when a look of confusion muddled his gruff features, you went on, “it’s just that we’ve been out here for days. I have been wearing this goddamn wedding dress for days. Have you ever tried sleeping in a corset? Have you even tried getting on and off a horse in this amount of lace?” you gestured to the dirty and tattered state of your gown.

Biting down on a smirk that threatened to show itself on his lips, he grunted, “can’t say that I have, Miss.”

And as he then began to shift back towards the horse to strap the rope back against the saddlebags, you continued, “I was thinking that maybe the next time we come across a town, we could stop by their tailor and–”

While you spoke, Joel then abruptly walked over to one of the unconscious men and began to rip off his clothing, “here,” he first tossed you the shirt.

For a moment, your eyes merely flickered between the button-down in your stunned grasp and Joel as he kept on stripping the man, “you can’t be serious.”

“Didn’t you just say that you needed clothes?” his fingers paused as he let out a groan.

“Well, yeah, but I can’t–,” you once again glanced down at the men’s shirt, “this isn’t exactly my type of clothing, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Well, I’m sorry that it isn’t spun of the finest silk this side of China,” he joked gruffly before chucking the rest of the apparel at you, “just put it on.”

Staring down at the fabric in your arms, you then quietly murmured to yourself, “…but I’ve never worn trousers before…”

Grasping a wide brimmed hat that had tumbled off one of the fellow’s skulls, Joel then closed the distance between you two and popped it down on your head, “here. This should help with the sun,” he murmured, before he then watched your gaze flicker down to the pile of clothing in your grasp, then expectantly back up at him, as he continued to stand directly in front of you, “right! Sorry,” it swiftly sank through to him, “I’ll turn around…” before his body twisted to grant you some privacy, though he still lingered near, just in case you decided to act out of turn, “just be quick before any of them wake up again…”

Your fingers were timid as they began to tug at your dust-wrecked white dress, although since you had needed help getting into it in the first place, attempting to take it off by yourself wasn’t an easy task.

“Could you maybe–, uhm…” you eventually asked, a mortified heat rising in your cheeks at your own words, “…help me out?” Joel then carefully turned back around, “I couldn’t even get into this on my own, so…”

“Right…” he uttered as you then slowly spun around for him to aid with the tight laces all along your spine.

Though since you were no longer facing him, you didn’t notice till it was too late when the outlaw pulled out a knife, and instead of pulling at the strings with his bare fingers, he sliced clean through them, his movements so swift that you didn’t even realise it till the sharp tip of his blade also cut through the laces along your corset.

“Oh my god!” you promptly yelped as your grasp instinctively soared up to keep your dress from dropping completely and exposing you further. Though as you gasped, the venom that formed on the tip of your tongue never saw the light of day, as your lungs suddenly were able to expand and properly fill up with oxygen for the first time in days.

“Anything else, Miss?” he murmured from behind you as his gaze lingered a moment longer on your bare spine as it shifted with each deep breath you sucked in.

“No,” the squeak hastily left your lips as you realised that this was the most indecent you had ever been in front of a man before, “thank you,” your cheeks heated up even further, “you can turn back around now!”

One day, when you’d reached the point of completely losing track of the time out in the wild, you stopped by a town to stock up on food and supplies.

It was humble in its size, with its sparse citizens being outnumbered by the cattle that roamed all along the outskirts, though even with the lack of people trampling the dusty main street, it still had a beating soul, from the fellow hiding from the ruthless sun in the shadows of a porch, his lazy fingers picking away at a banjo, to the local salon with its soiled doves that winked at everyone that passed.

Apparently, Joel was a regular at the establishment and trusted the girls not to tattle about his whereabouts during the one night you two stayed there. Though the outlaw still stayed ever so vigilant as he moved throughout the city, tugging his hat further down to obscure his face to any passersbys, so that they would recognise his likeness to all of the wanted posters scattered about town.

Though what you didn’t know was the dominant reason behind the brief pit stop, as in truth, being so near to you all day long, having your soft body pressed against his chest as you rode on the same horse, had driven the gruff man so much up the wall that he desperately sought out some other kind of release, as to not make the grave error of shooting his shot with someone like you.

Though when one of the girls whisked him upstairs, you passed the time around the rest of them, and in the process, spilt a few too many secrets of your own, as the vulgarity that you had been plunged into was enough to make them all crystal clear on your face.

It didn’t take long for the girls to grasp the opportunity and flood you with a bucket worth of tips and tricks, however when you had a tough time comprehending just how the intimate details worked, instead of talking your ear off further, they grabbed you by the arm and dragged you upstairs, till your eye was wide directly on the other side of the keyhole to the room that Joel was occupied in, granting you more than a clear visual aid, to say the least.

Some of the folks in the salon even thought your purity a little too intriguing, a few even offering to pay a small fortune for it. But before your cherry could be auctioned off, by then, Joel thankfully descended the staircase just in time to drag you out of the fray with your virginity still intact.

Joel usually still tethered a piece of rope between both of your bodies during the nights while you slept, though this night in particular, it almost seemed as if the outlaw had forgotten the precaution entirely.

Earlier that day, he had taught you how to shoot, after yet another encounter with some unsavoury types, had warranted the lesson, so you could feel more prepared in whatever the prairie may spring on you, whether it was man or beast.

Lowing one of the bottles, that he had picked up in town, after he’d taken another swig, Joel then abruptly tilted it in your direction, the dark liquor within sloshing at the movement, “you want some?”

Shifting your gaze away from the bonfire before you to eye the flask, your stare then gradually narrowed, “oh, I don’t know… I’ve never really drunk before.”

“Really?” Joel’s dark brows floated up, “never?”

“Well, my father was never a fan of liquor, so no, I haven’t,” you shrugged faintly.

Glancing over his shoulder, he then murmured, “I don’t see your daddy around here nowhere,” before extending the bottle further in your direction.

Grasping the bottle, you stared down the narrow opening for a moment before you took a sip, though the strong whisky burned your tongue the instant that it filled your mouth, immediately prompting you to cough raggedly.

“Wow, alright,” a chuckle escaped him as he swiftly helped tilt the flask back down so that you didn’t drop it during your small fit, “maybe take a smaller swig next time.”

“Oh my god! That’s awful!” you wheezed, your face screwed up as you glared down at the bottle, “how do you enjoy that?”

“You get used to the taste,” he tilted his head, “plus, the more you drink, the easier it goes down,” he told you, though that lesson only pushed you to snatch the flask back into your grasp, “wait, that’s not what I meant–, alright…” he swiftly gave up as you took another sip, letting you have your fun no matter how sick you might make yourself from it.

Passing the bottle back to the cowboy beside you, the flames before you flickered and crackled, though as you stared into the fire, you felt as another one began to ignite within your chest with every sip you took, making you slightly dizzy and giggly the higher the moon rose in the night sky.

“Can I ask you something?” out of the blue, you eventually blurted.

“I guess,” Joel grunted slowly as his eyes briefly flickered to your faintly swaying frame beside him.

“…those scars on your back…” your sentence crumbled as you poked, and you let yourself peek at the tip of the mark that stretched up and out of the neckline of his shirt.

Gathering what you were trying to utter, he then slowly cut in before you could manage to find the words, “handiwork of your little fiancé…” a breath filled his lungs as he bowed his head, “just one of the many reasons why I gotta do this.”

Tearing your gaze away from his broad back, your eyes flickered to his cold expression, “…Din did that to you?”

“He hired me and my crew for a job a while back, a big one that would have been able to change all of our lives. But then instead of paying us, he just locked us up in an abandoned building and set it ablaze… I was the only survivor…” his head dipped as he told you, “…took me a long time to track him down again. Flashy as he may be, the fucker can really hide when he wants to… but, now that I think about it, it was probably because he wasn’t down here at all. He was hunting you down on the other end of the country…” his gaze found your own, “in a way, you kind of helped me find him again.”

“How?”

“Well, the wedding,” he cocked his head, “news of that spread like wildfire…”

“Right…” you slowly averted your eyes. You had all but forgotten about that by now. In fact, you hadn’t really thought about the man who had nearly become your husband for a spree of days, if not weeks.

“…I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly get revenge for what he did,” he stared into the flames flickering before you both, “but I at least have to try…” he murmured quietly before his eyes once more offered you a glance, “…I’m sorry that you had to find out this way, but at least you got to know who he really was before you got stuck with a ring around your finger. I mean, unless you still want to marry him, which wouldn’t be any of my business. We can’t control who we fall in love with…” his gaze continued to pierce your soul, “no matter how wrong they may be for you, matters of the heart aren’t always something you can overrule…”

“…I don’t know what I’ll do after all of this…” you then inhaled deeply, “I mean, I know that I can’t go back to him, but that’s about the only thing that I know…” your stare flickered down to the half-empty bottle of liquor balanced on the ground, “I don’t think I could go back home to New York either. I’m not the same person anymore, I’ve changed too much… but if I stay down here, what are the chances that he’ll find me again and just make me go through with it all so that I finally become his property?” your gaze once more reunited with Joel’s, “like you’ve said, he’s tracked me down before, and that was halfway across the country, not in his own backyard…”

In the heat of the moment, before Joel even had time to think his actions through, he reached out, drew you in, and collided his lips against your own.

Though you were stunned for a moment, clumsily clawing to catch up to the frenzy he’d snapped into, it didn’t take too long for you to also start kissing him as if you had been drowning and he was your first gasp of air.

Though when you found yourself crawling closer, into his lap and clinging onto his frame, Joel suddenly woke back up and realised what he had done.

“Oh god,” he yanked away from you, “I am so sorry, Miss. I–…”

But instead of shifting away from the outlaw, your fingers drifted up to cup his bearded cheeks, “for what?” you planted a soft peck upon his lips.

“I–…Miss…” he struggled in between the gentle kisses you offered him, “…please, you should really stop before–…”

“Before what?” you caught his eye, your own wide with genuine curiosity.

Drawing in a controlled breath as he gazed back at you, he uttered, “before I lose control again and do something that I shouldn’t.”

“But, I–… Joel…” your frame was nearly buzzing as you sat there, balanced in his lap, “oh god… what is it that you do to me…” your fingers tightened in his shirt as you continued to stare into his eyes, “I don’t understand it… what is this? How do you–…”

And it was in that moment that Joel finally realised that you somehow felt the same for him as he did for you.

Melting under your flustered stare, he then drew you in closer and uttered, “oh, darlin’…” his head bowed till his forehead rested against your own. It took a long moment for him to part his lips once more, though when he did, his murmur didn’t clear up your confusion, “…what if you stayed here with me?”

Brow knitting together, you tilted back just enough to catch his eye, “you wanna keep me as your prisoner?”

“No,” his head shifted from side to side in a gentle shake, “I just wanna be with you…”

Sucking in a breath, a smile promptly bloomed on your lips before you echoed, “…I wanna be with you too…”

As Joel then fervently kissed you again, you swiftly threw your arms around his neck as you felt his silky tongue dance against your own.

Though as your hips began to rock down against his hard lap, a desperate whimper couldn’t help but form on your lips.

“God…I–…” your eyes fluttered as you absentmindedly continued to grind down against him, both of his palms digging into your hips, “…I-I need more, please,” you helplessly begged, not really comprehending what it was that your body was pleading for.

“Oh, yeah?” his gravelly tone tickled your skin in between smouldering pecks, “more of what? What do you need?”

“I don’t know… just, more…” you panted, your eyes fluttering shut as the outlaw began to kiss down your neck, “…I don’t understand what’s happening, what this is that you do to me… feels like I’m on fire or something… is that wrong? What is it?”

Catching your jaw in his palm, he tilted it back to catch your dazed eyes, “oh, sweetheart…” he uttered as a soft smile bloomed on his lips, “that’s anything but wrong…”

Twisting you around till your spin melted back against Joel’s burly chest, he continued to hold your gaze over your shoulder as his fingers dipped down over the front of your trousers.

As he began to pet your cunt lightly through the fabric, smirking as your mouth fell open in a gasp, he then asked, “has no fella really never touched you?” his caress found the buttons on your pants, gently ripping them open before stuffing his hand down the loosened waistband for your pussy to soak his fingers, “not even your little fiancé?”

“No…” you purred as his rough fingertips ghosted over your throbbing clit, “…I think he tried to kiss me once, but my father walked in on us before anything happened…”

Blinking hard, the cowboy then uttered, “wait, you mean to tell me, that was your first–,” before he cut himself off and simply let out a warm exhale, “oh, darlin’…”

As he cradled you in his lap, he briefly paused to yank your trousers off entirely, before his touch then returned to your cunt, rubbing it till you trembled atop of him. Peeked over your shoulder to catch sight of your glistening pussy, he soon let his digits dip down to tease your leaking entrance, tracing the quivering opening before you felt him stuff a finger inside.

The root of his rough palm rubbed against your puffy pearl as he buried another digit inside, curving and rocking them inside of you till you felt as if a tether inside of you snapped and a sensation you hadn’t even dared to imagine prior exploded within you, making your entire frame quake atop of his as a loud moan tumbled from your lips.

Recalling the sins that you had spied on through the light of a keyhole, you then dared to reach for Joel’s fat cock before he had even fully freed it from his pants. Caressing it curiously as it throbbed between your legs, pressed flush up against your petals, your hips too rolled slightly, coating him in your mess. You didn’t even fully know if what you were doing was correct, but with the image of the outlaw’s dick buried in between the legs of a soiled dove flickering in your mind, you raised up your hips and nudged the tip of him against your opening.

Your whole body trembled as you sank down on it, the stretch making your toes curl in your boots, “o-oh my god…”

“Holy–,” he too gasped as he had expected you would have needed more guidance, “atta fucking girl,” his brawny arms curled around you as he split you open, his hand drifting up to tilt your head, tearing your eyes away from how his big cock slowly disappeared inside of you, to instead lock with his own hazy gaze.

Your panting lips were merely centimetres apart as your hot gasps and molten moans mingled and melted in the sliver of space between your faces.

With the fire crackling in front of you, Joel let one of his palms slide between your shoulder blades, while the other one scooped down under your knees as he folded you up and twisted you slightly against him.

And as your legs dangled over his flexing forearm and your cheek sloped down to rest upon his shoulder, the outlaw took over and began to move your frame in his arms, rocking you up and down, his hips even rolling beneath you to bury his cock that much deeper inside of you, letting the tip of him rut so far that it kissed your cervix, making you gasp each and every time.

Though when that dizzying edge began to near once more, tears did not only begin to well up in the corners of your eyes at the intensity of the overwhelming sensation, but your cunt too cried out around Joel’s fat cock as you unravelled.

“That’s it, darlin’,” he groaned as your pussy began to squirt messily around his girth, “that’s my girl....”

“Yeah…” star-eyed, you drooled against his collarbone as you blinked up at him, your cunt still weakly gushing as the outlaw’s ravenous efforts hadn’t ceased in the slightest, “…I’m your girl…”