Never had she felt so welcome, so complete. She wanted to kiss him forever and ever.
But while she luxuriated in the glorious perfection of their long embrace, with her lips thoroughly wet from kissing and her arms full of him, an even deeper yearning grew within her. She wanted more—more of this, more of him. An ache she couldn’t name began low in her belly, seeping into her veins, spreading through her body with a current that left her prickling from the tips of her toes to the hollows of her ears.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted, needed...
He released her lips to nuzzle the place beneath her ear, sending a jolt of pleasure along her neck. Yes, that was what she craved—more of the tiny shocks that took the breath from her in quick gasps.
He slid the camisole from one shoulder. Running the ragged pad of his thumb along the exposed length of skin, he followed that rough touch with soothing kisses. She tipped her head to allow him access, and his fingers drifted lower, across the delicate flesh of her collarbone. His breath came deep and rapid as his fingertips brushed the neck edge of the camisole. One finger slipped tentatively beneath the cotton, as if in question.
She took a deep, affirming breath, and her bosom swelled to meet his light caress. Her breasts tingled, their peaks seeking his touch. She squeezed her eyes shut against the instincts that told her to withdraw, to cover herself, for heaven’s sake, to rebuke the brute who trespassed so boldly upon her innocence.
But she wanted this. She longed to feel his palm full upon her flesh, to fill his hand with her aching breast. This time, the groan torn from her throat was rife with sweet frustration.
He went suddenly still at the sound. "I'm hurting you," he murmured.
"No!" she cried, clutching his hand to her bosom for fear he would leave her. "No."
Even with her eyes closed, she knew he was watching her, but she was too drunk with her own desire to face him. What she was about to do was so unladylike, so lascivious, so much like the wicked women in her dime novels—the ones who drank whiskey and played cards and never won the hero—that she couldn’t look him in the eye.
What devilry possessed her, she didn’t know. She'd never been so brazen, so reckless, so bold. She curved her hand around his, flattening his fingers. Her breath shallow and rapid, she guided his hand down, savoring the rasp of his calluses against the flesh of her bosom. Lower and lower she moved his hand, past the frail boundary of her camisole, along the full curve no man had breached before, until his palm cupped her breast.
Her breath came out in a throaty sigh, and he seemed to suck that sigh from her hard between his teeth. The sound sent a heady thrill of power through her.
His fingers burned her virgin flesh, yet his touch was tender and tenuous. His forehead lowered to rest almost wearily upon her crown, and his trembling breath heated her already flushed face.
She had thought it would be enough, that the touch of his hand on her breast would quench the strange fire filling her body. But it wasn’t so. Instead, her desire flared higher. She lifted her face to his, seeking and finding his supple mouth again. This time there was an urgency to his kisses that fanned the flames of her yearning.
His free hand came up to cradle her face, steadying her for his deepening kisses. He tugged her chin down with his thumb, opening her mouth. Her heart raced as he lapped at her in invitation.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, the rim of her jaw, the crazily pulsing vein in the hollow of her neck. And then he moved lower. His lips seared a trail down her bosom. With his teeth, he slipped the strap of the camisole from her other shoulder, baring her breast. A sob caught in her throat as she realized his intent.
She had thought his hand upon her was heaven, but it was nothing compared to the touch of his tongue. Though his jagged breath echoed her own unstable breathing, he managed to govern his desire. His mouth closed over her breast with utmost care, sucking gently and leaving her squirming in delicious torment.
She tangled a hand in his hair, amazed by its softness between her fingers, and tipped her head back to bask in the starlight. It was scandalous, what he was doing to her, yet it felt amazing.
But even this, even the glorious sensation of his greedy feast, which left her shivering with ecstasy, couldn't satisfy her for long. There was still an empty ache low in her belly, a yearning between her thighs that demanded answer.
As if he sensed her hunger, he shifted upon his knees, dragging her closer, bringing her body flush with his, and she urgently pressed that throbbing place against his thigh. He answered the pressure, knowing what she desired. She reveled in the divine sensation and in the proof of his own yearning—the firm staff that was lodged against her hip. A frisson of intoxicating lust shook her at the evidence of the sheer power of his need.
Far too insatiably fascinated to be discreet, she lowered her hand to boldly explore this new manifestation. He groaned as she stroked him, throwing his head back like a coyote silently baying at the moon. Urged on by the sweet agony in his face, she rubbed her palm against him again and again, until, with a growl, he grabbed her wrist to cease her torture.
"You must...not," he wheezed. She could see it was difficult for him to stop her, and in the haze of her emotions, she wondered why.
"But I...want to. I want you. I want...this," she whispered, the sound like drops of water hitting a skillet of hot oil.
"No," he argued, squeezing her hand. "Now you want this. But later...tomorrow...you'll regret–"
She shook her head. "No." Her breath came quickly, and a sense of panic came over her. She didn’t want to lose him, didn’t want to lose this moment. "No, I won’t. I promise."
She searched his eyes, pleading, but the look he returned was fraught with indecision. The reflection of the fire danced in his dark pupils like a taunt while he let his smoky gaze roam over her face. Finally, his mind made up, he closed his eyes in resignation. His lips thinned to a grim line, and, lifting her about the waist, he turned to gently lay her down on the bed of pine boughs beside the fire.
Kidilqits. Crazy. That was what he was. There were a thousand reasons why he should just tuck Claire into her bed and dive back into the icy creek to cool his lust.
But with his body burning like a summer forge, he couldn't think of a single one. She was so beautiful, so seductive. He wanted her with all his being. He was swollen to bursting with his craving, and when she touched him, when he sensed that her need was as great as his own...
Somehow, despite the erotic blaze raging in his veins, he managed to dredge up enough sense not to do something irreversible, something he'd regret later. She was a white woman, after all, who knew nothing about love play. She'd probably never bedded with a man. So he decided he'd ignore his body’s demands, forgo his own needs, and resign himself to simply pleasuring her.
It would kill him, he knew. To watch her writhe and moan under his caress, to witness her rising desire and see the culmination of her ecstasy as she rode the waves of...
He closed his eyes. He wouldn't think about it. He'd kiss her. He'd touch her with his hands. He'd give her the pleasure she desired. And he'd do nothing else.
Claire’s short hair fanned out around her face where she lay, catching the light of the fire in a crown as brilliant as the sun’s. Her eyelids dipped low, heavy with passion, and her rosy lips parted. Her camisole was bunched about her waist, exposing her creamy breasts, and he yearned to taste her there again.
He reclined beside her, propped up on one elbow. Her eyes widened when he trapped her by slinging his thigh across both of hers. But she made no move to resist, not even when he slipped his hand beneath the hem of her petticoat and up toward the source of her sensuous affliction.
He studied her face to be sure his touch was welcome, though it was sheer torture for him. Her breath came in quick gasps as his fingers brushed the tender flesh of her inner thigh. Abashed, she wouldn't look at him, turning her head aside and resting her open mouth against her knuckles. Yet she didn't ask him to
stop. Even while she furrowed her brow in sweet distress, she parted her legs for him. And with an innocence that brought new blood to his loins, she lifted that part of her he desired most, pressing up against his palm for the relief she craved.
Steeling his jaw against a potent surge of yearning, he forced himself to be gentle. She alternately shrank from his touch and welcomed it again, twisting in a fitful battle between propriety and desire. He must take care then not to frighten her, to move slowly, to have patience.
He bit the inside of his cheek. Patience? Hell, all he could think about was delving into her warm, wet, tempting body. If his urges didn't subside, he'd end up soaking in the cold creek all night.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and he let his fingers begin the sensual, playful dance he'd learned long ago from the women of his tribe, a ritual his Konkow father had encouraged him to learn and his white mother had pretended to know nothing about. He had to concentrate—his blacksmith’s calluses had numbed him to much—but practice had taught him to, above all, heed a woman's responses.
Claire was responding. All too well. And all too quickly. Soft sobs came from her throat, and she squirmed in joyful anguish. One hand tangled in the sleeve of his shirt, and she rolled her head listlessly from side to side. He sensed her increasing pleasure, yet she wriggled and writhed like a snared fish, as if she might break free of her own emotions the way the grandfather trout had broken free of the line.
He wished he'd watched her more closely. Without warning, she suddenly arched and drove her hips violently upward, impaling herself on his finger.
She stiffened with a stunned cry, and her fist pressed at his forearm in panic. He swore under his breath, cursing himself for a clumsy brute, but thought it best not to withdraw. If he withdrew, she would never know the pleasure of love play and only remember the pain. If he remained, she'd eventually relax. Then he could make amends by showing her the ecstasy of quenched passion.
"It...burns," she gasped.
The hurt and betrayal in her eyes dissolved his lust. All he felt was remorse. He hadn't meant to hurt her, to damage her.
But he should have known. He always hurt people. It was his curse.
"I didn't mean..." he muttered. "This was a mistake. It was all a—"
"Wait," she said, halting him when he would have withdrawn from her after all. She swallowed, lowering her eyes. "It will pass...won’t it?"
He studied her face, and indecision clouded his mind. He felt like a wildcat he'd once seen chasing a bluejay into a tree. It had followed the bird onto a thin branch, unable to decide whether to pursue the game farther or climb back down. It chose to follow, and the branch had snapped under its weight. What would happen if Chase continued his pursuit?
"Perhaps..." Claire ventured, blushing profusely, her fingers toying with the buttons on his shirt. "Perhaps if you were to kiss me..."
It was amazing how quickly a man’s lust could be revived. And even more amazing how desperately Chase wished to repair the damage he'd caused. If she wanted him to kiss her...
Claire wanted him to kiss her more than anything. After the unexpected sting, she needed to feel the comforting warmth of his embrace again, needed to rekindle the sensual fire that had burned so brightly before.
It had been her fault. She knew that. He'd been touching her tenderly, carefully. Her own urges had undone her. Her impatience had driven her to surge toward him, to fill that empty place inside of her.
Well, she thought, it was truly filled now. In fact, she wondered if she'd ever be able to disengage from him.
Then he kissed her.
It was a slow, lingering kiss, unlike the others. He touched his lips gently to the corners of her mouth, all the while murmuring soft words in his own language. She tried to answer with more passion. But when she did, he withdrew, lightening his touch even more, fueling her to fiercer desires.
He knew very well what he was doing. Within moments, the pain between her legs subsided, and her body hungered for him again. She ascended once more into a world of muzzy contentment.
He moved slowly, his thumb circling over the spot that craved him the most, leaving her breathless. She parted her mouth, begging for the trespass of his tongue, but he only teased her, lapping delicately at her lips.
An odd vibration began in her head, like a swarm of sensual bees buzzing in her ear. The place where his fingers played continued to swell and blossom until her breath caught in shallow gasps and her head thrashed upon the pine boughs.
There was a second of utter still as he clasped her head to his shoulder. Then an explosion of pure joy flashed within her, filling her the way sheet lightning filled the sky. Her cries were muffled in the cotton of his shirt as she rocked through the wild storm in his sheltering embrace.
Then the feeling slowly subsided. He withdrew his hand and smoothed her skirts back down.
Gradually, her harsh breathing softened, giving way to the silence of the mountain. The stoked furnace of her body yielded to the night chill, and then she no longer felt gloriously naked, but awkwardly exposed. She drew her camisole back up over her bosom and burrowed her head against his chest, more afraid to let him see her bare emotions than her bare flesh.
It was wrong, what she'd done. She'd abandoned all sense, all propriety, for a moment’s pleasure, just like the bad women in her dime novels. Worse, she couldn't seem to work up any real guilt over it.
But what about Chase? As wickedly seductive as his actions seemed, it was impossible to envision him as a villain.
She gazed down at the dark arm wrapped around her. With his coal-black hair and eyes and his bronzed skin, Chase certainly looked like the dangerous Red-skins in her stories. But he was nothing like the savages of Beadle’s books. His tongue was soft as it tangled with hers. His kiss was delectable ambrosia. And the way he caressed her...
Her heart fluttered. He'd touched her in ways no man had—not just physically, but in her heart and in her spirit. He'd swept into her life when she'd needed him most, just as Yoema had foretold, to heal the past.
It was meant to be.
They were meant to be.
She knew it. And she knew that while he might not have the polite and genteel qualities of a dime novel hero, Chase Wolf was definitely the hero of her story.
Chase held Claire until she fell asleep. Then he carefully lowered her down to the pine bough bed.
She looked so peaceful, so satiated, so content.
He sighed. At least one of them was happy.
He rolled onto his back on the hard ground beside her and focused on the stars above. The lust distorting his trousers showed no signs of subsiding, even though his eyes were trained away from the woman who was to blame for it.
He tried to think of something else. Anything else.
His family. He wondered what his sister Rose was doing back at Hupa. Probably snuggling up to that husband of hers, all warm and safe and content, trying to make their first baby.
What about his brother, Drew Hawk? Drew was likely sitting in a saloon, one hand wrapped around a trio of Aces and the other around some supple-hipped saloon girl in lace petticoats.
He grimaced.
How long had it been since Chase had shared his bed with a woman? A long while, apparently, by the direction of his thoughts and the lingering heat of his blood.
He supposed there were too many other things filling his time at the village. He was the only blacksmith in Hupa. His work kept him busy from dawn to dusk, and most nights he was too tired to do more than shovel spoonfuls of salmon stew and peach pie into his mouth before he collapsed into bed.
How long had it been? The last moon? Longer? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to slake his thirst with the beautiful woman sleeping beside him tonight, and the sooner he realized it, the better.
Unfortunately, he couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to not only make love to Claire right now, but to make love to her over and over, to have a lifetime of lovemaking ahead of
them.
What if the notion that had sprung into his mind was true? What ifvengeance was not the way to give his grandmother's spirit peace? What if repairing the past meant loving his enemy instead, as his mother's Bible preached? Was it possible that a bond between the two of them would complete the circle?
Tempting images of marriage to the beautiful Claire Parker whirled through his mind, settling into an uncomfortable truth.
He didn't want to leave her.
And it wasn't only lust making him feel that way.
It wasn't even that sense of destiny that had come over him.
The truth was he was in love with her.
It was crazy. He'd only known her for a few days. How could he be so certain? And even if he did love her, why did he think there was even a remote possibility of a relationship between them?
They were from completely different worlds. And while that had worked for his parents, Claire was nothing like his mother. His mother had come to the west without a husband, without a penny to her name. She’d been grateful to be welcomed into his father's tribe. But Claire Parker was a privileged young lady with a gentleman she intended to marry and a lavish home she stood to inherit. It was unthinkable that she might willingly throw away the comforts of her white world and go with him to live in his backward native village.
Still, he had to admit it was tempting to think about going ahead with his original plan to kidnap her. Hell, stealing wives from other tribes had been part of his people's tradition for generations.
Of course, he realized, it was also barbaric.
He picked up the dime novel left on the ground beside him, looking at the cover. This wasn't one of Claire's books. No Red-Skin in her stories ran away with a white woman and lived happily ever after.
He put the book back down and frowned up at the stars. Then he closed his eyes to dream of things that would never be.
Chapter 16
“Well, sir, with all due respect," Frank announced rather smugly, "it looks like you were wrong." He lifted his oil lamp to illuminate the set of tracks that continued up into the mountains. "He isn't headed back to Paradise after all. I'd say he's on his way to Magalia."
Native Wolf Page 16