“We love each other,” she whispered to herself as she rose from her bed. “It is time to share the magic wonder of our love.”
She hurried through her bath, slid the beautiful, soft dress over her head, then did the best she couldwith her long hair. She had no brush so she moved her fingers through it until she finally got the witches’ knots out and the blond strands fell gently across her shoulders and down her back.
Having never approached a man in such a way, she felt a strange knot in the pit of her stomach. She swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and took a deep, nervous breath, then left her room.
She tiptoed down the hall, even though she knew no one else was there to hear her.
Dorey had spent the night with Twila and Joshua. The house was totally hers and Wolf Dancer’s, to do as they pleased with their privacy!
Her pulse raced as she crept down the stairs. She could feel the heat of a blush rush to her cheeks.
She placed the palms of her hands there and tried to cool her flesh with them. She didn’t want Wolf Dancer to awaken and find her blushing like a timid child.
She wanted him to see her love for him, her need. She hoped he would open his arms to her and welcome her into his bed.
She could even envision him removing the dress and moccasins as he gazed at her with those mystifying green eyes.
She could almost feel his lips where no man’s lips had been before—on her aching breasts. Her husband had been timid in his own way and had never kissed her anywhere except her mouth. He had not even caressed her breasts, as she knew most men were wont to do.
She had not hungered for any of those things, eventhough she knew it was a natural thing for a man to worship a woman’s body, especially his wife’s.
But all that Virgil had wanted was the release her body provided. She had always lain there, almost lifeless, as he thrust endlessly into her until he finally attained what he sought from her.
He had always spent only another moment in her bed, which he took to give her a quick peck on her cheek, and then he departed for his own room. He would leave Lavinia feeling strangely used, and with a longing that she doubted would ever be fulfilled. She had discovered shortly after they were married that her husband knew only what to do to find the release his body cried out for.
Now it was Lavinia whose body cried out for release. For the first time in her life, she wanted to be with a man in every way. And she did not think she was brazen for feeling such things. Wanting to be loved was not shameful!
Having bolstered her courage enough to proceed with her plan, Lavinia slowly approached Wolf Dancer’s bed.
The light was dim coming from the window, since it was still so early in the morning. But there was enough light to see across the room where Wolf Dancer lay.
She hadn’t expected to find him sleeping in the nude, as she now saw he was. She could not stop another blush from rushing to her cheeks, for she felt as though she had invaded his privacy. Surely Wolf Dancer did not expect a woman to come to his bed unannounced, especially at this time of day.
She knew she should go back to her room, but the sight of him caused her to stand there frozen, her eyes taking in every inch of his beautiful, bronzed body.
His long black hair was spread out beneath his head, framing his sculpted face. The muscles of his shoulders and arms bulged, even relaxed in sleep.
She ached to run her hands over those muscles, and feel them against her own flesh!
She let her eyes roam slowly lower, marveling at his muscled chest, past his flat belly, to see something that made her knees almost buckle. Her gaze froze on that part of him that God had been so generous with.
She had only seen one other man naked and that had been her husband.
Now that she saw this man in the nude, she understood the vast difference possible between two males.
And this man, whose bronzed body was so beautiful, was not even awake or aroused. When he was fully excited, surely he could give a woman such loving that she would never want it to end.
“What am I thinking?” Lavinia whispered to herself, framing her face between her hands at the realization of where her mind had shamefully taken her. But she couldn’t help herself. Her body was reacting in many strange, yet sensually exciting ways. She now knew that she couldn’t leave this place without finding out what it was really like to be loved.
She knew just how much Wolf Dancer loved her; perhaps he would demonstrate it in ways that she had never known were possible.
Suddenly his eyes opened and he was staring at her with those beautiful green eyes. Gazing at her in wonder, he slowly leaned up on an elbow.
“I’m sorry,” Lavinia murmured. Her pulse raced so hard, she was afraid he might hear her heart beating.
“I didn’t mean…” she quickly began, before he had the chance to speak. Then she halted, feeling too awkward to say anything else, or even remember what she had planned to say.
Wolf Dancer was not really surprised to find her there. When they had parted last night, they had left something undone between them.
It seemed that Lavinia had awakened feeling those needs that had been left unanswered when she had gone to bed without him.
“Come to me,” Wolf Dancer said, standing, the muscles of his legs flexing as he took a step toward her. “I was just dreaming about you.”
“You were?” Lavinia asked, her voice sounding strange to her now in its huskiness. But everything about her body was suddenly different.
She smiled sheepishly. “I had to come,” she murmured. “Was I wrong to?”
“In my dream I beckoned to you to come,” Wolf Dancer said huskily as his passion for her filled his very soul. “You heard me calling for you. You answered my call.”
“When I awakened, you were the first thing I thought of. Last night when we parted, I was so tired I could not have…” she began.
Yet she could not finish. It seemed too brazen. This man wasn’t her husband.
“You could not do what last night?” Wolf Dancer urged, smiling at her as he stepped closer. “Make love?”
“You must think me so brazen,” Lavinia murmured, lowering her eyes.
When she felt his hand beneath her chin, slowly raising it so that their eyes could meet, she knew he was now close enough that she could reach out and embrace him.
She could even smell his clean scent and realized he was freshly bathed.
She now knew that he had been awake long before she had risen and had taken his usual early-morning swim in the creek that bisected the island a short distance away.
She also knew that after that swim he made his morning prayers. She knew these things because he had told her.
“You knew that I would come, didn’t you?” Lavinia asked, searching his eyes. “You weren’t asleep at all when I stepped into the room.”
“No, I was not asleep the moment you arrived, but only resting my eyes until you approached, as I beckoned you to do,” he said. “You are here. And you are beautiful. The dress? Moon Beam placed it in your room for you last night before I left to sleepin my own bed. She also put the moccasins there for you. She is trying hard to make up for what her sons did to your daughter.”
“She shouldn’t feel angry at them for what they did, for I no longer do,” Lavinia said softly. “Do you not know that it was Dorey’s disappearance that finally gave us a reason to meet and become acquainted? I shall never blame those boys for wanting to talk to her, nor should anyone else. My daughter found her way here, where she belongs, just as you found me and brought me here.”
“Yes, it was all in the Master of Breath’s plan,” Wolf Dancer said. He stepped back only far enough so he had room to slowly undress her.
“Master of Breath?” Lavinia repeated, hardly able to think now that he was sliding her dress over her head. He tossed the dress to the floor, leaving her as nude as he.
“Our people’s Master of Breath is the same as your God,” he said thickly. “Sometimes we call him the Great Spirit.�
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“I am grateful to your Master of Breath for making you the man that you are,” Lavinia said.
She sucked in a breath of pure bliss when he leaned down and flicked his tongue across one of her breasts, and then the other.
It was something so wonderful, her knees almost buckled beneath her. But Wolf Dancer didn’t allow that to happen.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to his bed of pelts. Then he knelt down at her feet, taking the time to remove her moccasins.
When they were discarded, he lifted a foot to his lips, his tongue circling around her biggest toe. She inhaled a breath of wonder, and then she couldn’t think at all. Just before he spread himself over her, she saw the true magnificence of his manhood at its full length, now that he was ready to pleasure her.
“Let me love you,” Wolf Dancer whispered into her ear as he blanketed her with his body. She felt his fullness pressing in where she was wet and ready for him. She was swamped by a feeling of desire and joy she had never known possible.
She was feverish with desire.
Her body was yearning for him.
She felt an urgency building inside her that was new to her, yet she knew what it was. It was her body crying out for him and the wild, sensuous pleasure he would bring her.
“Please…please…do love me,” she found herself whispering as she twined her arms around his neck. “Make love to me. I…shall…oh, so willingly return your love.”
She moaned throatily when she felt him push himself inside her, causing pleasurable sensations that she had never felt before as he began his rhythmic thrusts.
His lips came down hard onto hers as he kissed her with a fierce, possessive heat.
She trembled and came further alive beneath his kisses and sweet caresses. He ran his hands over her body, lingering here and there when he discovered that touching and caressing her at a certain place gave her more pleasure than the last.
Wolf Dancer slid his mouth from her lips and moved it over one of her nipples.
He could hear her gasp of pleasure as he swept his tongue around the nipple, then softly nipped it with his teeth, just hard enough to arouse more pleasure in her.
With each of his thrusts in her, waves of liquid heat seemed to pulse through him, his body aching for completion since he had hungered so long for her.
But he held back, for he wanted her to know every pleasure possible. Already he could tell she was not familiar with sexual satisfaction.
She was wildly hungry for a man. It was obvious her husband had not offered her this kind of fulfilment. He could tell that she was new at this.
It was evident in the way she gasped with his each new approach to pleasing her.
Now, as his hands cupped her full breasts, his tongue moving from one nipple to the other, he could tell this was a new experience for her by the way she seemed to marvel silently over the pleasure it gave her.
The realization gave him double pleasure.
He kissed her again as his lean, sinewy buttocks moved, thrusting him into her. She locked her legs around him so that he could move more deeply within her.
And when he reached that sensitive place within a woman that he knew would bring her immense pleasure, he stroked it skillfully, and kissed heragain as she gasped and moaned and clung to him.
He swept his arms around her and cradled her there, marveling that she was so deeply hungry for his loving.
He was so happy that he was the man who was giving her such pleasure for the first time, ever. He knew now what she wanted, and vowed he would give it to her.
He wanted her to be happy…to be fulfilled. He wanted her always to know that he was there for her, in every way.
His tongue brushed her lips lightly.
Then he whispered against them. “I want you now. Are you ready?” He knew she was. But he wanted to be certain.
“Yes, yes…” Lavinia groaned. “Please, now…” Lavinia’s mind seemed to splinter with sensation as she discovered the true meaning of passion…of intense loving…of giving!
She clung to him as he buried his face next to her neck and she knew that he was finding his own deepest pleasure. He thrust more deeply than before, over and over again, her moans proving that she was giving back to a man for the first time.
And she treasured this moment with him!
She would never forget it.
Afterward, they lay together, breathing hard.
It was so different with Wolf Dancer than with her husband.
If it had been Virgil who’d taken such pleasure,he would already be gone, leaving her alone and unfulfilled. Instead, Wolf Dancer was holding her tightly as though he never wanted to let her go.
She brushed his lips lightly with kisses. She was flooded with emotions she could not even begin to thank him for.
She truly was a woman now, and she would continue to know a woman’s pleasure as long as she had Wolf Dancer to love her.
“I would like to stay here the rest of the day,” Lavinia said as Wolf Dancer rolled away from her and lay on his side, gazing at her with his mystical green eyes.
“I would as well, but there is something planned for today that I have not yet told you,” Wolf Dancer said, sitting up as she propped herself up beside him.
“What is it?” Lavinia murmured, welcoming a blanket around her shoulders as she became aware of the coolness of the room.
“I have asked Shining Soul to cast a spell on Hiram Price,” Wolf Dancer said. He saw shock in her expression. “We should be there, a part of it.”
“A spell?” Lavinia gasped. “Of what sort?”
She didn’t want to be afraid of this side of the Seminole’s beliefs, yet she was, a little. But she knew that whatever Wolf Dancer had planned with his shaman, it could not be harmful to her.
“Are you hesitant to join me as Shining Soul casts his spell?” he asked, reaching up and gently pushing her long hair back from her shoulders.
“If I am with you, nothing will frighten me,” she murmured.
“Something good for you and your daughter will come of this,” Wolf Dancer said, putting his arms around her and drawing her into his embrace. “We must eat, get dressed, and go tell Shining Soul that we are ready to sit with him as he casts his spell.”
“Should Dorey be there, too?” Lavinia asked, rising and feeling a quiet joy as Wolf Dancer slid the dress over her head, then knelt down and slipped her moccasins on her feet.
“The spell is meant to help Dorey, too, so, yes, she should sit with us during the spell casting,” Wolf Dancer said.
He drew her against him. “Never be afraid of anything our people do, especially Shining Soul,” he assured her. “He is a man of good heart. He works for the well-being of our people, including you and your daughter, as well as Twila and Joshua.”
“Can Joshua and Twila join us?” she asked.
“It would be good to have them there, too,” Wolf Dancer said. “But I will urge everyone else to stay in their homes until Shining Soul is finished.”
The fact that he would have his people stay away made Lavinia wonder again about what was going to happen. Yet she cast her doubts aside, resolving to trust anything that Wolf Dancer had planned for her and her daughter.
She gave him a soft smile as he reached for full buckskin leggings instead of his breechclout. As hedressed, she marveled anew that she was there with him, loved by him.
It was like a dream come true for her!
Yet now she wondered what else besides spells she would witness while living with him. She hoped she was ready for whatever might come her way.
Chapter Twenty-eight
O! How this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day.
—William Shakespeare
The village was quiet. All but those who were participating in Shining Soul’s spell were inside their homes.
Except for the birds’ chatter in the trees, there were no other sounds as Shining Soul knelt
in front of his hut, using his wand to draw a circle on the ground.
Lavinia sat close to Wolf Dancer, while Dorey, Twila, and Joshua sat a little further away.
All of their eyes were on Shining Soul as he sank down stiffly in the middle of the circle he had just drawn, his stuffed owl headdress on his head.
Gazing up, he lifted his hands heavenward and began to pray. Not a sound was made elsewhere as his voice rose into the cloudy sky. “Oh, Master of Breath, whose breath gives life to all the Seminole people, hear me as I come before you to seek your help,” he cried. “I am one of your children, small and weak. Master of Breath, I need your strength to cast a spell on someone who has brought heartache to those who do not deserve it. Oh, Master of Breath, I seek not to be superior to my brothers, but I need power enough to cast a spell this day.”
Lavinia gasped when she saw Shining Soul fall suddenly quiet, seemingly going into a trance, his eyes rolling back into his head.
Wolf Dancer had forewarned Lavinia of all that she would witness today, and she had then told her daughter and Joshua and Twila, so they would not be too afraid.
Wolf Dancer had told Lavinia that while Shining Soul was in a trance, his spirit would leave his body and soar to the heavens, where he would converse with the Sun God, asking this god to hear the same plea that he had spoken aloud to the Seminole’s Master of Breath. It was then that Shining Soul would disclose his wishes to the Sun God.
Wolf Dancer had further said that the Sun God was the most important god to his Seminole people. But now, in the midst of the ceremony, Wolf Dancer reached over and took Lavinia’s hand as they waited for Shining Soul to return to himself.
Wolf Dancer looked over his shoulder and saw that Dorey and Twila were clinging tightly to one another, their eyes wide with a mixture of fear and wonder as Shining Soul’s eyes remained rolled back in his head.
Wolf Dancer glanced over at Joshua, who seemed just as afraid, but who even now, as Wolf Dancer watched, placed an arm around both girls, drawing them closer to him.
Wolf Dancer sensed that perhaps enough timehad elapsed for Shining Soul to complete his conversation with the Sun God. Just as he turned to look at Shining Soul, the elderly man’s eyes opened and blinked several times.
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