“I’m sorry,” she murmured, tears burning her eyes.
He didn’t look up, but finished off the food without words. The fork she’d carried along scraped noisily over the plate several times.
“The pudding, eat it too. It’s sweet and covered in cream.”
He snatched the offering, forked up a huge mouthful. Chewed and swallowed. With a terrible howl of anguish he rose and threw the dish and its contents against the wall.
The unexpected reaction so startled her that she let out a bewildered cry, and started to go to him. Stopped when he turned on her, loomed was a better word, arms raised and fists clenched, the most dreadful expression on his face. She didn’t know him, would never have recognized him, he appeared so ferocious.
“What is it?” she asked, voice trembling so she could scarcely speak.
“How can I sit here eating like this when my people don’t even have water to drink?” The ferocity faded, replaced by distress.
She went to him, placed an open hand over his heart and stood rock still, counting the hammering beats. “If you don’t eat you can’t help them.”
Slowly, he calmed, some of the tenseness flowing from his taut muscles.
After a while he laid his own hand over hers. “I have to do something, A’den. I cannot allow this to go on.”
“I know. I’d like to help you.”
“But you mustn’t. They’ll kill you as soon as me.”
“Not if they don’t catch me. Us. If we’re careful we can sneak them some food, then get them out of this dreadful place.”
He squeezed her hand, then lifted it to kiss each fingertip, eyes sparking like struck flint. At the touch of his lips she shivered and her stomach convulsed with desire. Thighs gripped together, she tried to compose herself, had little luck. When she tilted her head to try to read his expression, he lowered his mouth and touched hers for the briefest of tastes.
She moaned, placed her arms over his shoulders. Touching him in that way, she sensed his exhaustion, held him as he had once held her, with tender care. As if he had no strength left, he leaned into her. For one brief moment of pleasure.
Sighing, he straightened. “How will we get them food?”
It took a moment or two to find her voice again, he had so affected her with his need. “From the storage shed. It’s locked, but I can get the key. Then it’ll just be a matter of taking care of the guard.”
He nodded, heaved in a breath. “We must do it right away.”
“No, I can’t get the key until later, and you need some rest. I’ll put out the light so no one can see.”
She did so, then hooked an arm in his, and led him to the tub near the stove. Though it had cooled off, the bath water would be warmer than the icy streams he so proudly bathed in during the coldest winter days.
“Wait,” she said, and left him to drag up a chair. “Sit,” she added and he obeyed as if poleaxed.
Kneeling on the floor she removed his knee-high buckskin boots and leggings, still stained with the blood of the battlefield, then rose and stripped him of his jacket, vest and shirt. He appeared too weary to resist. When she took both his hands and pulled him to his feet, their bodies grazed, thigh to thigh, breast to chest. A shiver vibrated from her loins into her nipples. In the dancing firelight, she caught only glimpses of his bare skin. A shimmer of strong thighs and calves, a rippling of muscles across his stomach and broad hairless chest. The breech cloth left a skimpy, pale patch between his legs.
With trembling fingers, she untied the leather thongs at his hipbones and let the garment flutter to the floor. Trying to avoid allowing her gaze to wander below his waist, she took both his hands, guided him to the tub.
“Step in. I’m sorry it isn’t perfectly clean. I bathed in it earlier, but it’s the best I can do. You’ll feel better after you soak a while.”
He made a deep, humming noise in his throat and lowered himself into the tub, long legs folded so that his knees stuck up as high as his chin. She had fit much better. The cloth she’d used was draped over the rim and she rubbed soap into it.
“Lean forward and I’ll do your back.”
“It smells like you, A’den.”
She swallowed hard.
Dear God, what was wrong with her that she wanted this man so desperately? Clearing her throat, she said, “Lean forward,” and was surprised the words came out at all.
Hugging his knees, he obeyed and she touched the cloth to hard muscles, covered by warm, downy skin. Wood snapped in the stove, and she began to scrub in harsh, tight motions, carefully avoiding the wound which was well on its way to healing.
Anger caused a pain deep in her chest, and she didn’t know where it came from or to whom to direct it.
All she knew for certain was that she must stop being such a fool over this man, who very well might carry scalps of white soldiers on his belt come morning.
Chapter Ten
Despite the circumstances under which he’d come to A’den’s quarters, Stone Heart couldn’t help grinning at her embarrassment. White women weren’t used to dealing with a naked man and certainly not one scrunched into a bathtub with his knees under his chin. He wasn’t sure how to set her mind at ease. He only knew that even in his exhaustion, it was indeed pleasant to feel her soft touch on his bare back. Though she denied it, she was what white men called a soiled dove, wasn’t she? So what harm could his being here like this do? As a Cheyenne he could never lie with a woman who wore the rope of chastity. As a white man, he did not have that restriction. Was he being dishonest with himself? Trying to convince himself that it would be all right to give in to the passion he felt when he was near her.
It was hard not to, with her kneeling beside him, he who sat in water in which she had so recently bathed. And now washed him with a bar of soap that had touched her. He had smelled the fragrance on her earlier, shivered thinking of that slick, sweet bar so recently rubbed over her soft skin. Every inch of her soft skin.
Nervously, she cleared her throat and moved aside the thick, golden braid that hung down his back. Wood crackled in the stove, but the fire didn’t explain the heat that washed over her as she knelt beside this virile and dangerous man. A soft moan of pleasure escaped him and he rested his head against his knees. Her heartbeat drummed a warning to beware, she had not tamed him by washing his back.
She remembered how he’d burst out of that icy stream wearing absolutely nothing, every glorious inch of him on display while she stared without shame. To cloud the vision, she clamped her lips tightly and scrubbed his back with renewed vigor. Across his broad, muscular shoulders, down over his rib cage and along the outline of his backbone, careful to avoid the healing wound where she’d removed the lead. Water splashed up her arms and onto the floor, and she kept rubbing vigorously, as if she might erase the pictures cavorting through her mind.
“Whoa, don’t take off my skin,” he said.
She jerked her hand away as if caught at something sinful.
For a long while he remained hunched forward, and neither said anything. The fire popped and outside the wind plucked at the building. The roof creaked and moaned.
At last she wadded the cloth, ran it up over his shoulder and let it go at his chest.
He leaned back, grabbed her hand. “I will finish.” His voice hoarse, his grip tighter than necessary.
“Yes, okay.” But he didn’t release her, and she wasn’t sure what to do. The clean smell of the Castile soap hovered in the heat from the stove. A vague tang of prairie grasses came from his hair, and she saw herself running barefoot across a green meadow, him chasing her. Catching her.
Though he continued to hold her hand, the fingers of his other hand threaded through her hair, plucked out the combs and set the long tresses free. He pulled her close, buried his face in the long strands and sucked in a ragged breath.
Beneath their hands clenched together on his chest, she felt the hammering of his heart; his lips nibbled at her earlobe, sending shivers of
delight straight to her core. Outside, the wind howled around the windows like a banshee trying to break in and join them in their passion. The mournful sound reminded her that she had slept with this man to keep from freezing. And what it had been like to have him curled around her under a thick pile of furs and blankets. His quiet assurances that had driven off her terror.
“I want you,” he whispered, breath hot against her cheek.
She wanted him too, completely and forever, but that would never be possible for them. “Do we dare settle for just this night?” she asked.
“I must have you, even if for one night. We can set it apart from our life. Let it exist in another place that we can carry with us always. In our hearts.”
“And when it’s finished, then what?”
“I will do what I must do and you will do the same. It will have been the best thing that could happen for both of us.”
For a long moment, she considered his argument. “Maybe for you. But I...I cannot do this with a man I do not love.”
She might have struck him, the way he stiffened and jerked under her hands. “The white man knows nothing of love. You give yourself to any man who can pay. What has that to do with love?”
Her skin went cold and her head swam. “I’ve told you, I’m not that kind of woman. Why won’t you believe me? I’ve never had a man, not in the way you’re asking. Would you take a whore? If so, then you aren’t much of a man.”
In the darkness, he remained silent. She could hear him sponging the wash cloth over his skin as if that would help him with an answer.
“Stone Heart, will you never believe me?”
“If it matters that much to you, then, yes, I will believe you.”
But she didn’t think he spoke the truth. Tears came to her eyes, angering her. “There is only one way I can prove to you I’m not a whore, but I don’t wish to do it for that reason alone.”
“No, no.” He touched her cheeks, trailed fingertips down either side of her throat. “I believe you. I do.”
“Are you sure?” He was only saying it to get her in bed. That, a warning from the place where she stored all her sorrows. The place that recalled the betrayal of another man and how much it had hurt.
He squeezed her hands. “I’ve told you. Now it is you who does not believe me. Say you do not want me. Say it.”
Very softly, she said, “I can’t.”
He rose from the tub, skin slippery and sweet smelling. The towel lay over a chair and she picked it up, began to dry him slowly, starting with his shoulders and back, following the line of his buttocks and down his legs, then moving in front of him. The sensations that played through her mind tantalized her imagination. Performing such a ritual in the dark was indeed erotic. Her hands moved slowly across his chest, down each arm, then to his belly. There she stopped for a moment. He stood very still, made no move.
She was a fool. A complete, absolute fool. Yet she couldn’t deny the attraction any longer. Must have something of this man to carry away with her. It would be different because she knew they could never be together. It would not be the same as with Stephan. Would it?
Along with a breathtaking desire to have A’den, Stone Heart felt a deep contentment, as if it would be all right if he rested here with her for a while. Let what would happen happen.
To have her rub him dry in the darkness of her room was a strange and satisfying experience. The tentative movement of the rough towel over his chest, across his belly and down each leg produced an almost violent reaction in his gut. He waited with apprehension for her to touch him, felt a burning hunger rip at his sanity. Disappointment filled him when she avoided his private parts and handed him the towel so he could finish the job. He had wanted her hands there, touching him, caressing him in the way women were meant to touch and caress a man. Because she didn’t, he only wanted her more.
Their fingers grazed, fire and ice. A small sound came up from her throat, almost a purr but laced with something more needful. He wished he could see her, look into the beautiful eyes, place his mouth at the pulse beat in her throat. He rubbed the towel briskly between his legs, hoping to settle down his rising manhood, but the action only made matters worse. It seemed a man was never too tired for passion.
Up until this moment, he had thought that to couple with her would be to satisfy an itch and nothing more. But if what she said was the truth, and she was a virgin, then he had no business satisfying his lust by lying with her. Still, she was not a Cheyenne and she wore no chastity rope. As a white woman, she intrigued him, and he knew that in another life, at another time he could love her. He’d best rid himself of any thoughts along that line. She belonged to a culture on which he had turned his back. A life awaited her elsewhere, and he had priorities that didn’t include her. To take her now would be dishonest and damaging to them both.
She pulled the towel away and he could hear her breathing. Thought he heard the rustle of clothing. “A’den...?”
The tips of her fingers trailed over his chest. “Yes, what is it?”
The heat of her nearness, the feminine fragrance that enveloped him, awoke a rush of memories, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say. Could only recall the flicker of firelight on her lovely features, the blaze of winter sun flashing in her red hair, the gentleness of her touch when she tended his wounds. All he wanted was to take her in his arms, lay with her in the secret darkness. But he could not remain here alone with her. Had to dress and flee before he ruined everything.
Her arm crept upward, coiled around his neck. Her breath feathered over his throat, bare breasts and belly caressed his fevered skin, the silken flesh of her thighs pressed against his. She had removed her clothes, stood before him clothed only in the blackness of night, naked as he himself. He could not speak, dared not move. Desire blazed through him, burst into flames that licked at his loins until they shivered in anticipation. He dare not move, could do nothing but wait, paralyzed by a need such as he had never known.
“Stone Heart, I know it would make no difference to you...and I wish...uh, I want us to make love.”
Throat filled with burning emotion, he enclosed her wrist to stop her, but could not reply. Make no difference? It would make every difference, but he would not tell her that. He could not do this.
With a small whimper, she said, “I’m sorry. Don’t, you’re scaring me.” She tried to pull from his grasp. “I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t mean...”
Curling her arm behind her back, he locked her against his chest. She grunted, began to pant and struggle, which only fueled his passion further. He should push her away, wanted to. Was helpless to do anything but hold her as if in anger. She couldn’t know what was truly in his heart, and he would not tell her.
“Why do you want to do this foolish thing?” he asked against her ear. “Why?” He tightened his grip. “Because I am a savage?”
“No. Be...because...please, I’m afraid.”
“I told you once you would be wise to be very afraid of me. I asked why you are doing this. Please answer.”
“Because I’ll never feel this way about a man again, and I can’t bear to return home without knowing...knowing what it would be like to...to be with you. Truly be with you.” She dragged in a breath, relaxed against him. “I’m sorry, let me go. Please. I feel like a fool.”
“You are a fool if you’re not frightened of what might happen. But I fear it is too late to let you go.”
At last he truly spoke the truth, for he could no more release her than he could fly with the great eagle. Lowering his head, he kissed whatever part of her he touched in the darkness, an earlobe, the downy curve of her jaw, the satiny skin of her throat. Lifting her off the floor, he moved his mouth down to the rise of her breast and over a rigid nipple, took it between his lips. Helpless, hopeless, lost. He swayed, tasted deeply of her. Soft, sweet flesh nurtured him, filled him to overflowing and he drank in ecstasy.
She cried out, but did not pull away, and so he
didn’t stop. Could not have done so, even if he wanted to.
A great, glorious desire bloomed in his belly, spread through him like the warm light of summer. He took her to the floor, wrapped her in his arms and legs.
She curled within the curve of his body, opened herself to him while she moaned softly. Shifting until he covered her, he slipped into the moist warmth and felt his world tilt even before he broke the barrier of her maidenhood. What a powerful joy mixed with regret that produced in his heart. As a Cheyenne he felt shame, as a white man pride, for she had given her virginity to him. She had told him the truth.
For a long while he simply held her, letting her grow accustomed to the feel of him inside her, filling her. When his need grew beyond endurance, he growled down in his throat, took long deep breaths to tame the beast.
It was her first time and though he ached to continue, he knew to hurt her would ruin the experience. This would be their first and last act of love, and he wanted her always to remember that this was the most beautiful day of her life.
Smoothing tangled hair away from her temples, he covered her face with kisses. Tasted tears on her cheeks.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered.
“Yes, oh, yes, but it feels so wonderful.”
He moved slightly inside her, drew away then pushed slowly, easily. Felt his world spinning.
She gasped, gripped his shoulders. “Do that again.”
“Yes, yes,” he said and did as she asked. Clung to her because nothing else existed beyond this animal hunger.
She locked both legs around him, rotated her hips until he felt himself ready to explode, then stopped and found his flesh with her tongue. Blazed fiery paths along his chest.
Spoke moist words against his flesh. “Stone Heart. It is not your heart that is made of stone, silken...hot...smooth...stone.” With each word, she pulled him deeper within herself, soaring to the brink and taking him along.
Going with her, he held them on the precipice yet a moment longer to make sure she was ready, that what was about to happen would take her beyond the pain he caused and into the world of sweet rapture where only lovers could go. Her cries intensified and she moved to his rhythm. The pulse of his desire throbbed like the pounding of a thousand drums, and reality spun away. In the void of infinity, only the two of them existed. Both were plunged into a world of timeless ecstasy where all else was forgotten save this act of pure perfection.
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