“It’s like magic,” Flame said, feeling the heat of his manhood as it grew tight and sleek amid her fingers.
“Move your hand on my . . . eh . . . magic,” White Fire said, chuckling. He stretched out on his back and spread his bronze, muscled legs apart. “Slowly . . . slowly . . .”
He closed his eyes and sighed as she did as he had suggested. And the more she moved her hand on him, the more the rapture built within him. It was rushing through him in hot waves of bliss, his head becoming dizzy from the intense pleasure.
“You seem so taut and tense all over,” Flame said, noticing how his toes were so tightly extended and how the muscles in his arms and legs were so corded. “Are you certain I am not hurting instead of pleasuring you?”
White Fire opened his eyes. He laughed softly. “If only you were inside my body and could feel what I am feeling, you would not question anything,” he said huskily. “You would feel as though you were floating above yourself, like an eagle soaring in the heavens.”
“I’m so glad that I am capable of giving you such pleasure,” Flame said, not feeling at all self-conscious about being there, totally nude with him, touching the part of his body that, until she had made love with him that first time, had been such a mystery to her.
Wanting not to feel selfish in receiving and not giving, he placed his hands around her waist and lowered her beside him on the rabbit-fur blankets.
As he gazed at her with his midnight dark eyes, and as his hands began to move tenderly, slowly, and caressingly over her body, Flame sighed with pleasure and closed her eyes.
She breathed heavily when she felt his fingers slide down to where she ached with need of him. She threw her head back and gasped with passion when she felt his fingers move slowly on her tight nub of womanhood.
Then she flinched with an even more intense pleasure when she felt his tongue flick over her woman’s center.
As he spread her tendrils of hair with his fingers, he licked her until she felt as though she might burst with the building rapture that was flooding her senses.
White Fire saw that she was perhaps getting too close to the brink of total ecstasy. Wanting to join her, he gave her one more long, wet, lick, then moved over her with his body. He paused long enough to take a lingering look at her.
As her eyes opened and she smiled sweetly up at him, he stared at her face, at her perfect features that were crowned by the red flame of her hair beneath her.
Then he greedily absorbed the sight of her breasts. They were soft and pink crested, well-rounded, and heaving—ah, such an invitation for his hands, and for his lips to taste and suckle!
But he delayed his needs a while longer as his gaze swept down across her flat belly, stopping where her red curls framed her wet and warm place.
He could still taste her on his tongue. It was a bittersweet taste. It was her.
Then his gaze burned upon her bare skin as he moved to the curve of her thighs, and then the soft tapering of her ankles.
Then he looked at her feet, at how straight and perfect her toes were, her toenails as pink as pale pink rosebuds.
“Darling, please . . . ?” Flame murmured, reaching her hands out for him.
She gave him a seductive look through her thick lashes. A trail of fire had been left on her body by the touch of his vision, yet she wanted more.
“I do believe I can give you more pleasure by doing instead of looking,” she whispered huskily.
“Yes, I believe so,” he said, giving her a steady smile, his eyes glazed and drugged with desire.
Feeling the curl of heat growing in his lower body, White Fire lowered himself fully over Flame. He wove his fingers through her hair and sought her mouth with a wildness and desperation that was new to him.
Their lips met in a frenzy of kisses as he thrust his throbbing member inside her.
Her body a river of sensations, Flame twined her arms around his neck, then lifted her legs around his waist and rode with him as his eager thrusts deepened and became faster.
His kiss now all consuming, his hands now at her breasts, her hard nipples stark against his palms, Flame’s happiness bubbled from deep within. Her world melted away as the rapture spread like molten lava throughout her.
Flame’s groans of pleasure fired White Fire’s passion. He licked his way down to her breasts. Then he flicked a nipple with his tongue as he swept his hands beneath her and locked his fingers into the soft flesh of her buttocks. He lifted her body more tightly against his as he moved rhythmically within her, going deeper with each thrust.
Flame moaned. She sobbed. She thrashed her head back and forth. She could not help but cry out with pleasure as she began to come in waves. She was engulfed in a rush of pleasure so intense she felt as though she might faint. The ecstasy this time had moved her with bone-weakening intensity.
Her pleasure fulfilled, she became more aware then of White Fire’s. His mouth rested against the slender column of her throat, and she could feel his rapid breathing. She could hear his guttural groans of pleasure. His eyes were closed as his body moved rigidly in rapid succession, his eager, maddening thrusts almost lifting her from the rabbit-fur blanket each time he shoved into her.
“Flame . . . Flame . . .” White Fire whispered, his cheeks flushed with the building of the heat of his passion.
He rose fully above her again. He wrapped his arms around her and brought her breasts against his chest. His mouth covered hers with a reckless passion as he gave one last shove that brought him over the brink into total rapture.
Flame clung to him as his body spasmed.
Then he rolled away from her and lay on his back, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.
Flame rolled over and snuggled close to his perspiration-laced body. “White Fire, the pleasure was so intense this time, it . . . it . . . somewhat frightened me,” she whispered, running a slow hand over his chest. “Did you feel it also twice as much as before? Perhaps even more?”
“The pleasure for me while with you has always been something that is so ecstasy filled, I doubt it could ever be more intense than what I have experienced. . . or I might not survive it,” he said, chuckling.
She slid her hand down his chest and stopped it where she could feel his heart pounding erratically beneath it. “You are still so breathless?” she whispered.
He turned smiling eyes toward her. “Not so much that I could not do it again and again,” he said huskily. He grabbed her hand and placed it on his manhood. “All you need to do is touch me there and my blood rushes hot and rapid through it.”
She clasped her fingers around him and felt the heat growing against her palm. She did not think she could ever be more than in awe of how this part of his body worked than she was now.
He slid her hand away. “We should not take any more time, though, making love,” he said, his voice suddenly serious.
He gazed up at the smoke hole in the ceiling. Stars still flickered like diamonds in the heavens, yet he could see that the sky was lightening somewhat behind them.
He looked over at her. “We must leave,” he said. “Now. If we wait until daylight, we might chance running into your father.”
“But Chief Gray Feather?” Flame said, reaching for her riding skirt. “He expected us to eat the morning meal with him.”
“He will understand when he finds us gone,” White Fire said, standing, and sliding on his breeches. “He would not want us to stay for breakfast if it might endanger us, and perhaps even him, for it was he who gave the order to his warriors to abduct you.”
He turned to Flame. He framed her face between his fingers. “Your father must never know that Gray Feather abducted you,” he said. “You know what would happen. Even before Colonel Edwards got the chance to stop him, your father would attack Gray Feather’s village.”
Flame paled at the thought.
“Remember, Flame, under no circumstances do you ever tell your father of Chief Gray Feather’s part in your abduction,” he
said seriously.
Eyes wide, she swallowed hard and nodded. “No, I won’t,” she promised.
They hurried into the rest of their clothes, ran outside beneath the lightening sky, saddled their horses and rode away into the dawning of morning.
“We may have waited too long as it is,” White Fire said, looking heavenward. “It will not be long now until the sun rises along the horizon.”
The birds were awakening in their nests. Some, especially the red-breasted robins, were warbling and singing their morning songs. Some were fluttering and leaving their nests for early prey.
A lone wolf howled on a distant bluff.
Chapter 24
Ah! Who to sober measurement
Time’s happy swiftness brings,
When birds of paradise have lent
Their plumage to his wings?
—Robert William Spence
The howling of a wolf awakened Colonel Russell. He cringed when he looked around and remembered where he had slept the night. In White Fire’s bed in his cabin.
His nose twitched at the smell of coffee brewing over the coals of the fireplace, having given instructions to Lieutenant Green to wake him at daybreak so the search for Flame could continue.
The search had led him far and wide last night, after he realized that Flame was not going to come home. The search had ended at White Fire’s cabin.
When Colonel Russell had found White Fire gone and there were still no signs of Flame anywhere, he had concluded that they had left together—that they had more than likely eloped.
Well, Colonel Russell had thought angrily to himself, they had to return. He would be there waiting for them when they arrived at the cabin. Then pity them both!
Grumbling beneath his breath, Colonel Russell eased his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there for a moment and looked slowly around him. The glow of the fire in the fireplace reached just inside the door enough for him to see things. He cringed. He found it hard to understand how Flame, whom had been raised in luxury, could choose this rattrap over what he offered her!
“I have even more than that to offer her,” he whispered to himself. His eyes took on a devilish gleam and his lips fluttered into a slow smile.
When he had gone back to St. Louis for the burial of his wife, he had seen Flame for the first time in years. He had been shocked at how ravishingly beautiful she was. She had grown up into a lady who drew the eyes of every man who came near her.
He hung his head in his hands as he, at this very moment, could not help but envision her in his arms. He had tried to shake such thoughts from his mind, for they seemed so indecent, even though he was no true-blood kin to her.
He knew now that it had been wrong for her mother to lie to Flame all those years, pretending he was her father, when now, he wanted more than that from her. He wanted her all to himself.
He thought back to when he had met her mother. He had not known until after their marriage that she was pregnant with another man’s child. He had tried not to hate her for lying to him.
He had never been able to truly love her. They had seldom shared a bed once he knew the truth about her. He had scarcely taken any woman to bed since then.
Now the hunger that had lain dormant for so long had awakened inside him. And only Flame could feed such a hunger!
His jaw tight, and with determination etched on his face, he rushed from the bed and hurried into his clothes.
Fastening a gun belt around his waist, he stamped into the living room. “Out!” he shouted, pointing toward the door as he glared at Lieutenant Green. “We’re not waiting here any longer. We are going to search every inch of that forest until we find my daughter.”
He felt it wrong now to refer to Flame as his daughter when he knew that if he ever did find her, he would, in time, marry her. When he did finally find her, he first would send her to St. Louis. He would send her to a convent until she begged for release and would agree to anything he asked of her.
He would then ask the government to assign him to another fort far from St. Louis and the Minnesota Territory, where no one knew either of them—where it would not look unnatural for them to live as man and wife together.
“And to hell with what some might say about the age difference,” he thought to himself. He would look past the stares and close his ears to nasty gossip about him being old enough to be her father.
He chuckled as his thoughts still ran wild on how it would be once he found Flame. Yes, she would have a new husband, but it would not be the ’breed!
Glowering, the colonel left the cabin and waited for his horse to be saddled. He looked heavenward and saw the first signs of the rising sun as shimmering rays of gold fanned across the horizon.
“By damn, I will find her,” he whispered. “Pity the ’breed if he is with her!”
Chapter 25
Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part,
No, nor for my constant heart.
—Anonymous
The sun was up past the horizon just as White Fire and Flame arrived at the Indian agent’s cabin. When White Fire saw no smoke spiraling from the fireplace chimney, and no horses in the crude corral at the back of the lodge, his heart sank.
“Isn’t he here?” Flame asked, wheeling her horse into a sudden stop beside his.
She could not help but notice the tattered, yellowed curtains at the window. She saw how weeds had grown up knee high around the perimeters of the log structure, even at the door.
“The place looks so deserted,” she murmured.
“I had not taken the time yet since my release from the Sioux to come and meet with Neal Geary, the agent,” White Fire said, sliding from his saddle. “I should have known something was awry when he did not come and join the recent council with the Sioux at Fort Snelling. I should have known something was wrong when your father placed such an emphasis on finding an interpreter, instead of using Neal’s expertise. Neal was fluent in Indian languages. His presence at councils between Colonel Russell and the Indians would have been enough.”
“So you knew him?” Flame asked, herself dismounting her horse.
“Yes, before I was forced into captivity by the Sioux, Neal and I were good friends,” White Fire said. “Like you and me, he was initially from Missouri.”
Flame stepped quickly to his side and went with him through the dew-dampened grass, wincing when a black snake slithered quickly away from them and disappeared beneath the edges of a large rock.
“Do you think my father ordered the agent to leave the premises when he became the commandant at Fort Snelling?” Flame asked, standing aside as White Fire lifted the latch at the door and gently shoved it open.
“Now that I am aware of your father’s plans to start a war with the local Indians, yes, I imagine he felt that Neal Geary should be the first to go since he was here in the Minnesota Territory to fight for the rights of the Indians,” White Fire said somberly.
He reached a hand out for Flame. “Come inside with me,” he said softly. “Let’s see what we can find.”
“Surely nothing that will help us know where he might be,” Flame said, gasping when she stepped into a thick cobweb just inside the door. She fought the cobweb with frantic sweeps of her hands. Then she moved quickly farther into the room to where White Fire was standing, taking a slow look around him.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” he said warily. He gestured toward a journal that lay open on a desk, as though someone had been disturbed while making entries.
He gazed at the many leather-bound books on the shelves above the desk. “Neal would not have left those behind,” he said dryly. “I have never seen a man as proud of books as he was of those you see on the shelves.”
He frowned as he looked farther into the morning shadows. “Nor would he leave without his clothes,” he said. “See how they are stacked neatly on a shelf? See his boots? His rifle standing against
the far wall?”
“No, surely no man would leave those things behind,” Flame said, shivering at the chill that crossed her spine, as though an omen of bad tidings. She crept closer to White Fire and looked guardedly around her. “I’m afraid that something has happened to your friend.”
A sudden thought caused a sick feeling to grip her insides. “No,” she said in a soft moan. She looked frantically up at White Fire. She grabbed his arm, causing him to look quickly down at her with alarm. “White Fire, you don’t think that my father could have . . . ?”
She clasped a hand over her mouth, finding it too hard to continue with her suspicions. They were too horrible to say aloud. She didn’t want to believe that the man who carried her blood in his veins could have murdered someone and done way with his body as a part of his plot to rid the land of Indians.
But if her father feared that the agent might uncover his devious plot, would not he then have rid himself of such a threat by . . . by . . . doing away with the man?
Her father could never have carried out the plot in the end, making it look as though the Indians were responsible for the blood spilled upon the soil of Minnesota.
Her father would come out of this looking like a hero if he killed the Indians and kept them from slaying whites once the war was started between them. No one but the soldiers under his command would ever know that it was her father who had started the war. Those men would never speak against him, knowing what he was capable of doing to them.
“I believe no one will ever find Neal Geary,” White Fire said solemnly. His eyes wavered into Flame’s. “And, yes, I believe your father is responsible for his disappearance. Who else would want him dead? The Indians, the Sioux and Chippewa alike, saw him as a good friend. He fought for both their rights. And if a voyager or anyone else, for that matter, had come across this cabin during their journeys and wanted to steal from it, do you think they would have left any of this, especially the rifle and clothes?”
White Fire Page 17