by Shirl Henke
“Tomorrow we'll go to town and get Judge Benton to marry us,” he said, scooping her up and heading for the bedroom.
“Tomorrow,” she repeated, renewing the kiss.
He slid her feet to the floor inside the bedroom door, still holding her tightly around the waist. Neither wanted to let the other go as they clung together, swaying in a dizzying kiss that spoke of so much longing, so much love, long denied. His tongue teased her lips, brushing the soft insides, then skimmed across her teeth. When she boldly followed his lead and pressed her eager tongue against his, he growled and twined them together in a swirl of rioting sensation.
Carrie kissed him back, returning caress for caress, her starved senses clamoring for every touch, every sensation she had remembered on all the long lonely nights of the past two years. She ran her hands up his shoulders and neck, curling her fingers in his thick, coarse black hair. It was growing longer again and she loved the feel of it, taking fistfuls and pulling his head closer to hers in the embrace.
He moved his devouring mouth off hers and slid it hotly down her cheek to the slender column of her throat. She threw back her head and bared it to his rapacious kisses, licks, and love bites, gasping and softly moaning his name.
He reached one hand up to the buttons on the front of her dress, unfastening them one at a time, pausing to lower his mouth to each bared inch of flesh as he pulled the dress away. His lips brushed her shoulder, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts until she thought she would scream with the pleasure. Her breasts throbbed for his touch. Ever so slowly he continued the exquisite torture, freeing first one, then the other high, pointed peak. She arched against him, desperate for the heat of his mouth on her sensitive nipples. He teased and enveloped one, then the other, alternating between them like a starved man at a banquet until she held on to his shoulders, reeling in frenzied pleasure.
She could feel his hands, still busy with the fastening of her dress. When he had it freed, he stood back and she helped him pull it off her arms and drop it over her hips to the floor. The thin chemise was wadded around her waist, and she hastily unfastened it and tossed it down as he slid his large, dark hands over the white pantalets, easing them off her long, slim legs. He knelt and slipped her shoes off, then stood up once more, never taking his eyes from her willowy, golden body.
“You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,” he breathed, running his hands up her thighs to span her slim waist and then slide over her rib cage to lift and cup the upthrust young breasts.
“I'm not changed? I mean since Perry was born?” she whispered, looking into his glowing eyes, which reflected her naked image on them.
“Maybe a little larger here.” He pulled softly on a breast, sending ripples of pleasure shooting down to her toes and back up to lodge in the core of her.
She reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Now my turn,” she said in breathless concentration as she peeled the soft cotton off his broad shoulders and pulled it free of his pants. He shrugged it off and returned his hands to work their blistering magic on the hardened points of her breasts. With trembling hands she ran her fingers through the black hair on his chest, then pressed her face against its hard surface, feeling the sharp imprint of the medallion that gleamed in its usual place. “How long I've wanted to do this,” she breathed. She inhaled the scent of him, male and vital, clean and enticing as her hands followed the pattern of his body hair downward to the waistband of his pants.
With a wicked chuckle she began to unfasten the straining buttons, slowly, as he gasped in pain and pleasure at being freed from the tight confinement. When she eased the pants down his straight, hard thighs, his shaft stood proud and straight.
He kicked pants and moccasins off hurriedly while she knelt and reached one hand out to hold a hard narrow buttock. The other hand cupped him experimentally. The sensation was electric, and now it was his turn to moan in need. “You'd better stop that, or I won't be able to control myself!”
He pulled her up into his arms and they both reveled in the sensation of naked breast and belly pressed tightly together, rubbing sensuously, smooth and silky against hard and hairy. Once more he picked her up and carried her the few steps to the bed, then dropped her onto its inviting width and followed her as they rolled, arms and legs entwined, to the center.
“The sheets smell like violets,” he breathed into her hair.
“Big improvement over how they smelled before,” she retorted, nipping playfully at his face and neck.
“Oh, Firehair, it smells like you now, all soft and clean, like wildflowers.” He rolled on his back and pulled her on top of him for a long, languorous kiss, all the while running his hands up and down the delicate bones in her spine, cupping her delectable buttocks and massaging her silky flanks.
Carrie writhed against him, loving his hard, long body and his hands roaming over her. After a minute more of such close contact, she raised her head and looked into his eyes. “Please, Hawk, now. Love me now.”
With amazing gentleness, he rolled them over and poised above her, looking down at her flushed, beautiful face with its plea for fulfillment. Ever so carefully he slid into her velvet warmth, concentrating with all his strength on going slowly to wait for her. It was as if he had been without a woman for as long as he knew she had been without a man.
Slowly he thrust and she arched, recalling the wonderful ballet of love they had played out that night in his room at the big house. Then she had never been made love to before, but it all came back to her now in such poignant sweetness that it took her breath away. She opened her eyes, focusing them after the initial haze of ecstasy, to look up at him as he stared down at her. Their gazes locked as all the love and vulnerability in their souls rushed out and intermingled.
All too soon the slow cadence became frenzied as Carrie's hunger drove her to pull him closer, to urge him to move faster and harder until she made one final convulsive arch, crying out his name. He watched her as his own body blazed with the heat of a thousand stars, and then he collapsed, shuddering, on top of her. Carrie locked her legs around him and held him fiercely to her breast, never wanting to let him go.
He caressed her neck with soft, nuzzling kisses, saying in a laughing whisper, “I was afraid I couldn't hold back for you!”
“It's been so long. What did you expect after two months?” She buried her face against his neck.
“Mmm,” he murmured in her ear, “then you admit you enjoyed my savage lovemaking at the lake?” His face darkened in self-condemnation. “I didn't want to hurt you, my beautiful Firehair, but I was so jealous, so—”
She cut him off with a kiss. “You were right—I wanted you. Oh, Hawk, I've always wanted you, always loved you. Never doubt it. I couldn't bear it if you left me again.”
“No, no, never. I'll never be that big a fool again.” He rolled over and sat up, then reached for the medallion around his neck. He took it off, saying, “I believe this belongs to you, Firehair.” With that he slipped it over her head, gently lifting her hair to place it around her neck so that it nestled between her breasts.
They snuggled beneath the covers and she caressed his cheek softly, saying, “You belong to me, Hunting Hawk or Evan Sinclair, both sides of you that I've seen, and any I haven't, it doesn't matter. And I belong to you.”
“Fate, the white man says, or destiny. I never thought it was as poetic or as caring as the Cheyenne way. Let me tell you about my medicine dream, Firehair, when I received my name.”
As he told her of the vision he had in that broiling-hot medicine lodge high on the Dakota mountainside, Carrie's eyes widened. He described the hawk and the wolf, the stolen cub, and the blazing, sun-streaked sky. Forgetting her nakedness, she sat up in bed. “You dreamed that the summer you were fourteen? And I was seven, back in St. Louis! It was hot and I awoke from my nap crying for my mother. That was the first time,” she whispered, her hand reaching out to caress his cheek, awe in her voice.
He took h
er hand and kissed the soft palm. “I know. When you told me that day by the lake, I was stunned. I didn't understand what to make of it because I was so sure you hated me. It's strange, I never was certain whether the sun was rising or setting in the dream. Now I know it was rising.”
“The beginning of a whole life together,” she breathed as he sunk his fingers into her thick, flaming hair, scorched with the heat and beauty of it. He pulled her down in a fierce, sweet kiss.
Just as in the medicine dream, he had at last captured the sun here in his arms. He would hold her fiery love in his hands and in his heart forever.
Epilogue
Yellowstone County, 1886
The sun blazed across the summer sky, arching its golden light even through the dense foliage of the trees where Kyle waited with Carrie and her children. Perry sat proudly on his own small pony. He was five years old, and already his legs were long and his face serious. Even if he was three-quarters white, he looked Cheyenne. The boy controlled his mount with the inherent skill bred into the horsemen of the plains. Kyle held Ferris, Perry's three-year-old brother, who squirmed and fussed, eager to be down and exploring the strange new sights and sounds around them. Carrie sat on the ground, crooning to her two-month-old daughter Carolina while the baby dozed on her lap.
She looked worriedly over at Kyle. “Are you sure Iron Heart is still alive? That the council will let Hawk see his grandfather? I couldn't bear for him to be hurt again.”
Just then Hawk rode away from the two men he had been conferring with, toward the hill where Carrie waited. As soon as he drew near she could tell the news was good.
“See, I jist had me a feelin',” Kyle said, grinning at Perry.
“You always seem to ‘have a feeling’ when anything turns out good, Uncle Kyle,” Perry said, returning the smile.
Hawk escorted his family proudly into the encampment, smaller now than it had been four years earlier. The ravages of disease and harsh winters had shrunken the population even further. But Iron Heart lived.
“I would see my grandson once more before I die.” He had spoken to the council, who had honored his wishes and rescinded the exile of Hunting Hawk after four years.
His sharp old eyes, still bright despite his advancing years, studied the woman. Daughter of the Sun, Little Otter had called her. It was a good name for the proud, beautiful wife of Hunting Hawk. She stood calmly with her children, waiting for him to speak. They were all gathered inside his lodge for this private reunion. There would be feasting with the whole village tonight, but now the old man searched their faces, in silence.
“It is good you have returned, Hunting Hawk and Daughter of the Sun.” He looked at them with love and pride in his usually impassive face. “And how are my great-grandchildren called?” He looked at Hawk, who knelt with his sons.
“The eldest, who you met when he was a babe, is Peregrine, an English name for the hunting hawk.” The tall, black-eyed child looked gravely at his great-grandfather, awed by such age and majesty, but sensing a kinship to that austere, yet kindly face.
“This is Ferris; his name means iron.” Iron Heart studied his namesake, whose thick black hair and coppery skin proclaimed his Cheyenne heritage. However, he had his mother's clear, bright-green eyes. He squirmed in his father's restraining grasp, eager to explore the mysteries of the lodge.
“And this is Carolina,” Hawk said proudly as he exchanged his son, taking his daughter from Carrie's arms. “She is named for her mother, whose name means One Who Is Strong.” Caro watched her father with liquid-gold eyes, listening to the low, familiar cadence of his voice. Her dark curls were burnished with red and her eyes were a golden brown, but her skin was as dark as her brother's coppery hue. Without a doubt, however, the delicate features were Carrie's.
“They please me greatly,” Iron Heart said simply to Hawk. “I am content now, for I can see that the prophesy has been fulfilled and an old man's meddling has not changed what was meant to be.”
“You mean our dream?” Carrie questioned quietly, taking Ferris into her arms.
Iron Heart's expression was puzzled. “Hunting Hawk's dream, yes, daughter. His medicine dream. He has told you of it?”
“We share it, Grandfather. Carrie had the same dream I did, at the same time. She told me of hers before she knew of mine.”
For a moment the old man's eyes flashed with amazement; then he nodded. “So, it was doubly fated to be.”
Iron Heart watched the subtle interplay between husband and wife and knew that it was right this time for his grandson. “I once wanted to keep you here with the People, but in my heart I knew it was wrong. I, too, pondered your medicine dream, which said you would take something from He Who Walks in Sun—his land? His woman? Or the son he thought to have?”
Hawk and Carrie exchanged glances. Then Hawk said, “Does our love and our firstborn displease the Powers?”
“No, I do not think so. I displeased them when I urged you to wed Wind Song and live here. I knew the dream. I should have let it fulfill itself. Because of my meddling, much unhappiness followed; but now, I have lived to see things set right. The Powers are kind to a foolish old man.”
“Then you are truly pleased with your great-grandchildren? It—it does not bother you that they are more white than Cheyenne?” Carrie's voice was uncertain, yet hopeful.
Hawk looked at his grandfather and smiled, for he knew what Iron Heart would say.
“One of our great chiefs said almost a lifetime ago, ‘We were a small people and good captives made us more, so now there is scarcely one among us who is not a foreigner by blood!’ You did not come to my grandson as a captive, Daughter of the Sun, but your blood has enriched us all the same. You are a part of the People. When we are gone and our way of life has vanished, we will live on in your children and their children.”
About the Author
SHIRL HENKE lives in St. Louis, where she enjoys gardening in her yard and greenhouse, cooking holiday dinners for her family and listening to jazz. In addition to helping brainstorm and research her books, her husband Jim is “lion tamer” for their two wild young tomcats, Pewter and Sooty, geniuses at pillage and destruction.
Shirl has been a RITA finalist twice, and has won three Career Achievement Awards, an Industry Award and three Reviewer’s Choice Awards from Romantic Times
“I wrote my first twenty-two novels in longhand with a ballpoint pen—it’s hard to get good quills these days,” she says. Dragged into the twenty-first century by her son Matt, a telecommunication specialist, Shirl now uses two of those “devil machines.” Another troglodyte bites the dust. Please visit her at www.shirlhenke.com.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
About the Author