*Mature Content 18+*

Sunset on the horizon painted the desert in rich spill of crimson and gold, burnt sienna and flame orange. Siran watched from her room above as the girls below cooed and purred over the most recent man to enter the quarters of their business.

Siran was indifferent, oblivious to it as she tracked the line of the mountains that seemed to be set afire by the wash of the setting sun. She wondered what the treasure hunter was up to and what adventures she had found herself in now.

Oblivious that down below the object of every woman's affection was indifferent to them all.

"Oh honey... you can have any one of us."

Bridgette practically purred out, her make up overdone and her curves already showing the sag of age, the presence of a profession that she no longer was suited for... but iin these times... in this town... some women had no choice.

"I don't see what I'm looking for."

The man's voice near growled with disgust.

"But this is all we have honey, surely... you can pick from the girls."
"I want the one that's not here."
"What are you talking about. It is just us."
"No it's not."

A nervous laugh then as Bridgette moved to step in front of the stairs, near blocking the man's way as he stalked toward her. The gunslinger's anger and nature near to roll off of him.

"C'mon honey. We don't want no trouble."
"I want... her"
"There's no one upstairs..."
"I can smell her. Now move... aside."

His voice growled,a handful of bills pushed into the woman's hand as he took the stairs in loping, devouring stride.

The door slammed open and there was no time for Siran to protest even as the anger and surprise flashed in dangerous ways through her eyes.

All but shoved against the wall as the hat was torn from his hair and thrown aside. His mouth found hers, hungry and savage but still something that seemed to claim her as known.

The breathless sound escaped her as she snarled, moved to fight before he was grabbing her and tossing her to the bed as a rag doll might have been dismissed.

"Don't fight it..."

No matter the rough way of his handling the whisper at her skin was a deep rumbling gentle sound. His fingers that pushed and tore away the cloth from her flesh in a soft caress.

His mouth found the soft place between shoulder and throat and left her screaming out with surprised pleasure as his teeth sank in.

Knee pressed between her thighs and left her parting for him. No matter if he was the paying customer or not, Siran found her body submitting to his even as finding a place beneath him in the sensation of equal.

Powerful and possessive and yet she did not feel herself as being one he dishonored or willed to submit to his power.

"Off..."

Her hands clutched as claws kneading into his flesh and gripping to show the demand not to have him off of her, but for him to be just as free of the fabric as she was.

The throaty growl escaped even as he moved away from her to shed his clothes to land near the prior dismissed hat.

He was more then a gunslinger... and as his mouth, his tongue, his touch and so much more of him filled the part of her that was far from a valley of death but instead a valley of slick heat and life...he proved that he was so much more.

Sweat soaked and exhausted hours later when the sun was in its rise he nuzzled a kiss into her hair, the hardness of him firm in press at her rear as he held her in a claim she never knew before.

"Who... are you..."

Her voice heat and honey and thick with confusion and need to know and understand.

"I am as you are..."

She turned to face him then but he was already rolling away from her and moving to get dressed.

Siran did not ask where he was going. She never expected him to stay no matter how his words had altered her life. A heated bit of pleasure with a man could not and should not have changed so much.

He ignored the question in her eyes as he walked to the door, opened it with a pause at the threshold.

"One day... I'll come back... and free you from this damned place. I'll come back for you."

The door closed and he was gone from her life... perhaps for forever... for after that she never saw him again.

Maybe he was just a ghost...

So many sun rises. They had come and gone. Her arms folded in front of her chest as the sheet was drawn closer to her naked form.

Clothes easily could be denied and ignored and fleeting thoughts made her almost in will to drop the sheet from her flesh and leave her skin to be painted like the desert by the sun's palette.

"You can't wait forever."

A glance over shoulder, turquoise settled on the treasure hunter. Her smile as fleeting as tumbleweeds rolling and passing by.

"How many sun rises?"

"To many. It's time to go."

Her eyes tracked the horizon. Expecting. Waiting. Wanting.

Finally a turn away. Acceptance that the man that trespassed like a ghost walker on the plains through her life... was gone.

Siran dressed in silence. Said her goodbyes in whispers as she headed out with the treasure hunter.

Adventure perhaps was what her blood and spirit needed.

"Oh...and before I forget..."

Turquoise eyes snapped up to Lara, quick reflex to catch that box.

A hand reached out and she caught the hand of the Spanish Vixen to be pulled up to straddle the horse behind Lara. It took a bit of coaxing to not unnerve the beast, but the horse finally settled with Lara's harsh words.

Reprimands.

Into the horizon they rode. The box opened and the turquoise bracelet taken, slid upon her wrist as the talisman pooled into her palm.

In the empty eternity of the desert the box clattered to the dirt and rolled. Dismissed for like a pearl taken from a shell... the treasure had been found.