He never expected her to play back.

In their rapport, he’s been reduced to the joker, the roguish flirt who’s quick with the innuendo but less so with the hands. Some horned up harlequin confidant that supplies both a shoulder to cry and a safe space to detox because he respects the predrawn boundaries set between them and therefore cannot be a threat. A role he still relishes because it’s still one half of them, even though it’s a far cry from the role he’d actually like. One instead where she lights up to him entering the room in kind. Where he’s free to touch her as he pleases, free to taste and take any time that seems like the right time. Where she calls his name not in the annoyed disdain of a disgusted roommate but in the choked religious tone of a well-practiced lover. Where he can make her greasy eggs and toast after a rowdy night of furniture-breaking love making because he’s free to spoil her as he desires, not as an insurance policy that she stay alive on things besides cigarettes and heroin.

He’d asked once and she’d on the most instinctual and violent level, declined. With electricity. He’d respected that. Sort of. To the best of his ability. He’d been content to smother it all down and just be close to her. A masochistic half life that he’d convinced himself was better than one without her at all. He’d made himself sick trying not to feel what he does everytime she snorts while laughing. He’d told himself that sneak peek of her in the shower was the last torturous time. Told himself that hit from her joint, her chapstick on his lips as she slipped her head drowsily to his shoulder, was as good as an accidental island kiss. He’d forced it as truth because it was a helluva lot better than a reality where she’d had enough of his sad, pining roommate routine and left for good.

Until she hot-brands the very marrow of him with that look, in that get up, whiskey-shine on the swell of her bottom lip like a lighthouse calling him home. He’s all in, will play whatever game it takes to be closer to her. He’s giddy, can’t take the swing offered from her own hand fast enough. It’s the best he’s had in ages. That’s his girl, sniffing out the good stuff in a room full of gutrot.

Her roleplay accent is crap, but he forgives her, too over the moon at the way watching him tongue along the bottle rim has her pupil’s blowing out deliciously. His glee multiplies ten fold as she plunks down the glass to chase a stray droplet of runaway liquor down the stubble on his throat with dirty fingers, daring to touch him more candidly than she ever has before. Like she’s got a right to.

Kane sighs, closing his eyes to lean into the touch. “Well as it happens, you’re just the one I’m lookin’ for,” he rumbles.

He dares to span strong hands along her corseted waist because that’s what the sheriff would do. It’s boning has her cut into a figure he rarely gets a chance to appreciate beneath her usual layers of comfy draping. She’s curvy in all the right places and it’s got his head spinning and his mouth watering. It’s impossible for her not to look perfect, but right now she’s downright sinful. An obscenity he wants to scream in exaltation.

“Ya see Miss Clementine, I’m here to arrest you. It’s a crime in these parts to walk around looking as fucking sexy as you do.”

He punctuates the announcement by hoisting her roughly up by the hips onto the bar ledge, quickly making a space for himself between her knees before she can protest. The silk of her skirts rustle indecently as he inches them higher. Till peekaboo hints of maroon lace undergarments are revealed beneath the yards of black. The white of her thighs is a stark contrast to the dark silk and the fishnets at her ankles and Kane groans, tugging her hips closer till she’s forced to brace herself around his waist lest she tumble backwards off the bar.

“And you’ll need to address me as ‘Sir.’ Cause I’m afraid I’m gonna have to take you in for a long, extensive questioning.”

He leans in with bared teeth, tilts his head, clearly aiming for the tender skin along her jugular. Moving torturously slow to give her plenty of time to pull back, to laugh as the play gets a tad too frisky (too real).

When she doesn’t - when she inhales deeply enough to push her cleavage inches from his mouth even, back arching - Kane hesitates. He goes still, confusion siphoning some of the heat from his gaze.

His touch along the inside of her knee fades into something skittish and unsure. Never resting in one place long enough to indent her pale skin though he’d like nothing more than to brand her with his own fingerprints till his very DNA seeps in to mingle alongside her own.

He huffs awkwardly through a grin, trying to play it cool though his eyes are sad and wary. Guarded when they’d just been glowing. “Toves,” he jokes in a theater whisper, tilting back his hat with a finger and leaning on his heels to search her face, “you know it’s just me, right?” In case the sheriff’s outfit is somehow good enough to fool her into thinking he’s an imposter she might actually fancy. In case she’s mistaken him for somebody else worth this kind of attention.

Cause they’ve been here before.

Right here. Right on this precipice with no room in either direction to jump, to even breathe.

He’s always been right here. Waiting for her to see him, to stop looking past him. To realize that if he tries really hard and can be really good, he can be somebody worth loving.

And suddenly playing cowboy isn’t fun anymore. “Wait. Hold on.”

He doesn’t want to be a pretty fantasy right now. He doesn’t want to tolerate a stranger’s name on her tongue. Kane slides both hands up her neck to cradle her face, thumbs at the cupid’s bow of her mouth to trace it down in a sweet caress. How is this more intimate than his hands between her knees? Less teasing, more direct. No way to skirt around the intense question in his eyes. He swipes a little further in this time, just enough to draw out a hint of whiskey-warm wet from behind her lips. He’s staring, magnetized to her reaction, breath a bit shallow and shaky.

“We really gonna do this?” he murmurs. He closes the few inches to barely brush his mouth along her brow, testing the waters. Hoping against hope she doesn’t pull back. Or worse, shock him into next week.

Feeling braver when it never comes, he plants a more playful kiss to the tip of her nose, hands resuming their position at her waist. “This what you want?”

He’s about to do something incredibly stupid, open his mouth and correct it to the ultimate question that rings more true - Can I be what you want? - but a flash from above the bar pulls his attention, has him squinting against the dot of light.

“Oh shit,” he blurts, startled, blinking into the mirror. “I don’t think we had company.”

He helps her tug her skirts down just as five men stroll into the saloon. Various heights and colors of brown leather, they move like a pack of wolves - on the prowl and in tight pack formation. It’s immediately clear they’ve been together for a long time. They’re led by a tall man with a dark, scarred face half obscured by a black ten gallon hat. His focus is singular and seems to pierce right through him straight to Tovah.

But what’s alarming is the jumbled rush of emotions Kane gets from the group. It comes in an overwhelming rush and he winces, left to decipher them at all once amongst the rushed broken whispers of ”how….he touching her? and ”must be powerful...demon-no, angel, si!” There’s suspicion first and foremost. But underlying like a live current is the infected throb of anger. The bitter, spitting kind of lonely men left to their anguish and isolation for too long. The kind that makes men rash and prone to violence. Unpredictable powder kegs.

Kane turns to face them, gives a tight nod but careful not to seem too approachable. “Establishment’s occupied, gentlemen. Personal engagement, you understand.”

Black Hat stares holes through him and Kane’s hackles raise further. He casually leans to block Tovah fully from their view, trying to shield her without drawing obvious attention. But from the waves of pent up lust being shot at her from across the room, she might as well be naked with a target on her chest for all the good it does.

“That one there is ours,” Black Hat says, jerking his chin at where she’s peeking over Kane’s broad shoulder. “We been watchin’ her since she got here. She came alone. We put claim on her first. So hand her over nice and quiet like and there'll be no need for any guff.”

“Ex-fucking-cuse me?” He swings an arm back to barricade Tovah further behind his back. “She most certainly is not. You just can’t claim people. And she can speak for herself. Toves, you wanna go play with the demanding creepy men or no?”