by Karen Kay
He groaned, kissing her even more passionately than before, and then it happened. He felt the spasms of her pleasure as the warmth of rapture became hers. On and on it went, the taste of her an erotic inducement.
At length, she stilled, though her breathing remained an uneven, heavy thing. With every breath she took, her breasts heaved up and down, as though they teased him for a touch. He acquiesced to their demand, for it was a small thing to ask.
After a short while, she rose onto her elbows, that she might gaze down at him. “Swift Hawk, I…I had no idea that it could be so…beautiful. I thought lovemaking was something a woman endured. I didn’t know it was such a living, breathing, feeling thing.”
He simply nodded, though he smiled at her too. “Now you know. It had never entered my mind that you would not understand the pleasures that can be attained between a man and a woman. It is good that you have discovered this. And remember, we can share this with one another for all our days upon this earth.”
“Yes. Yes. But we are not done, are we? There is more, isn’t there? I mean, for you?”
“Haa’he, there is more.” Scooting up toward her until he had positioned himself over her, he added, “As I have already said, the first time often hurts for a woman. You must know this.”
She nodded.
“Are you ready?”
“Very much so,” she said, and he kissed her on the lips, his touch over her sensual yet reverent. While he held her lips captive with his own, he joined himself with her.
She jerked upward. He had expected as much.
Though he hesitated, he didn’t withdraw from her. That would have been a mistake. Instead, he kissed her again, his tongue mating with hers, and all the while he thrust upward and within her a little deeper. Presently, he felt her protective sheath break around him.
He reveled in the sensation of it, for coupling with her as he was, he knew the warmth of being welcomed. It was an exquisite and joyous feeling all at the same time.
He thrust deeper, marked her quick intake of breath, realizing that it was hurting her, and he wished it could be different. Even if thoughts of drawing back occurred to him, it was too late. Being wrapped in her was spurring him on, and the thought of stopping was almost painful. Again, he plunged upward, and taking his weight onto his arms, he rose slightly over her. Another strain, then another against her, and at last, she had taken all of him that there was to take.
The feeling was fierce, for he felt not only sensation, but the jubilation of being one with her. It was a closeness that went deeper than mere physical love. It was he being her; it was her being him. It was the recognition of having found the one who completed him. Gazing down at her, he whispered, “I love you.” Even those words seemed inadequate.
She smiled back at him. “Oh, my darling, I love you too.”
In apology, he said, “It will be better for you next time, I promise.”
“Better next time? It’s pretty wonderful this time.”
He smiled, for he understood that she was easing his concern. Then she wiggled her hips in such a way as to cause him to think he would go quietly out of his mind.
This was physical, a coming to a point where his body worshipped her. And yet it was more—it was spiritual. For they were themselves, yet one.
He held himself back from meeting his pleasure, for it was in his mind to give her a chance to become more acquainted with him, with his body and with the act itself.
As though she knew he was struggling to control himself, she seemed intent on goading him on. “Don’t hold back, Swift Hawk. Love me completely.”
Her plea was his undoing. He thrust into her and out, over and over, his gaze locked on hers, for he would, if he could, join his life force with hers.
She wiggled again, and he was at his precipice, tripping over the edge of a most pleasurable body experience. Though his attention was for a moment caught onto himself, he did not take his gaze away from hers. It was like looking into forever.
And then it happened. She met his response with one of her own. Watching her meet her pleasure because of him was thrilling. As he gazed down upon her, he was certain he witnessed the beauty of her very being. Indeed, so close was he to her, he knew he had surrendered his heart and soul to her, wholly, completely.
And he was glad, so very, very glad, for it was a good thing.
The river below them had swelled under the constant pounding of the rain; here and there it had overflowed its bank. But it did not flood the land within the shelter. Even if it had done so, these two might not have noticed, since they were so caught up in each other.
Together they smiled; together they listened to the music of the rain, sprinkling as it was against their shelter. In unison, they breathed in the moisture-clad air, and each said a prayer of thanks for the crackling of the fire and the warmth at their feet.
In truth, Angelia had never felt so contented.
Outside, the dark clouds had parted, and Angelia could see bits and pieces of a rainbow, its multicolored arch lighting up the heavens. Seeing it, she wondered momentarily if Nature might be apologizing for her earlier wrath over this land.
At present, shimmers of red and gold added to the color scheme of the sky, the land mirroring the reddish hues and the cliffs glistening as though they had been painted in a pinkish haze. A few black clouds decorated the goldish-red of the sky, but Angelia was beginning to believe that the worst of the storm had finally passed.
But not so the storm within their lean-to. Indeed, both she and Swift Hawk held to each other as if they were afraid that if one of them let go, the other might disappear.
Swift Hawk reached up to settle the blanket more fully around her and leaned over. “There is something on my mind, and it is a thing, a happening, that I feel you should know about me, my wife.”
Wife. He had said wife. What a wonderful word.
Sighing deeply, contentedly, she said, “Yes, I know there is.”
“You know?”
“Of course.” She smiled up at him. “You have mentioned to me several times that you follow a purpose, but you have never said what this is, though I have asked. I fear, my husband…” her grin deepened, “…that you have been very vague about that.”
He chuckled. “What a perceptive woman, and here was I, thinking I had hidden my secrets well.” With his fingers, he coiled back a lock of her hair. “But perhaps you might come to understand, after I tell you what I must, that the reasons why I have been vague are mayhap without fault.”
Angelia grabbed hold of his hand and held it to her heart. “I would never think any other way.” Her gaze looked deeply into his. “I have realized that if you have not said something to me before now, you must have your reasons.”
“Haa’he. I do. I have. But now you should know too.”
He positioned her hand over his chest. “Know that what I say comes from my heart, for what I tell you will seem strange to you. I have seen how the white man lives, and I have come to understand that he keeps himself separated from the spiritual aspects of life.”
“That is not true,” she said. “We are a very religious people.”
“Religious perhaps,” he agreed. “But not necessarily spiritual. There is a difference. For what I have to say is, indeed, spiritual.”
“All right,” she conceded, then nodded.
“Come.” He pulled her close, into his arms. “Let us curl up with one another, chest to chest, skin to skin. Let us take strength from the closeness of our bodies, and I will tell you of my mission, and why I am here. But I must warn you that what I will say is a thing of great mystery, and you may not believe me.”
“I will believe you, for I honor you, my husband.” Grasping hold of his hand, she brought it up to the side of her face where she rubbed her cheek against his fingers. “Yes, my dear, I do honor you.”
The sun had long since left the sky when Swift Hawk at last finished the recounting of his story. Outside, the rain still fell fro
m the clouds, though it did so in a much gentler fashion. Though the moon was hidden by dark clouds, sounds of the night crept into their shelter—the crickets, the locusts, the nighthawk, the wolf. Even the coyotes yipping in the distance added to the sounds of the prairie at night.
Angelia and Swift Hawk reclined toward the opening of their lean-to, the fire at their feet, a supper of prairie chicken well eaten. At present, it was calm outside, so quiet it was hard to imagine that only this afternoon their world had been amok.
Angelia lay cuddled within the warmth of Swift Hawk’s embrace, her head on his shoulder, one of her legs straddling his thigh. The trade-blanket was thrown haphazardly over them both, though neither seemed to need it. And why should they? They had each other.
Swift Hawk had finished speaking to her only a few moments past, and Angelia lay within his arms, silent. Odd how she had become used to the soft whisper of his voice.
What should she say? How did a person respond when confronted with such a fantastic story?
Glancing up at him briefly, Angelia was beginning to wonder if it might be true, what Swift Hawk had earlier observed. Perhaps it was so that the white man was too divorced from the spiritual. For she was having a difficult time coming to grips with this.
In faith, to say that his story was fantastic was an understatement. And yet there was one thing about it that was, indeed, a certainty: Swift Hawk believed the story implicitly.
And, in the end, she believed in Swift Hawk.
Drawing in a deep breath, she said at last, “And so, you are here to free your people?”
“Haa’he. I am.”
“And you had hoped that I could help you free them?”
“Haa’he.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why me?”
His arms tightened around her. “Because I saw you in a vision.”
“In a vision?”
“Haa’he. As I sat alone upon a high butte, I prayed to the Creator for a vision. For many days there was nothing. And then you came to me. You and your brother. I saw you, in a wagon. Your brother was driving it, and you had your rifle in your hands. You were bent down, facing backward and leaning over the seat. And you were shooting at something behind you.”
A muscle flicked wildly in her cheek. “How did you know that?”
She hadn’t meant her words to be sharp, although to her own ears, they stung. However, Swift Hawk merely inclined his head. “I have seen it. I have seen you and your brother in a vision, more than once.”
“More than once? You have had more than one vision? About us?”
“Haa’he. About you.”
This gave her pause, although presently, she said, “So when you came to the fort, you were really looking for me and my brother?”
He nodded. “I was.”
“But how can that be?” She came up onto her elbows that she might look into his face. “That first time we met, you acted as though you disliked me.”
Swift Hawk shrugged. “You were not as I expected you to be. I thought, since you were a being from my vision, that you would be the perfect image of my people’s ideal woman—soft-spoken, demure, retiring, yet strong in heart.”
“Soft-spoken, retiring?”
“So I thought. But you were none of those things, except being strong of heart.”
“Hmmm. I am certainly none of those things.”
“Except being strong of heart,” he reiterated.
She lay back down, cradling her head within the crook of his shoulder. “No wonder you were disappointed, if you were expecting me to be perfect.”
She could sense his grin; sense it because she didn’t glance up to see it. He said, “It was Red Fox who brought me to realize that in all the world there is no such thing as perfection. I was expecting something that could never be. Besides, in that first meeting, there was another problem between us that plagued me, perhaps more than the rest.”
“Oh?”
She felt his slight nod, but he didn’t elaborate. At his silence on the subject, she asked, “And what was that problem?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said.
“Very well.” He inhaled sharply. “The truth is that I wanted you as a man wants a wife almost at once. I was shocked at myself. You were a vision, given to me by the Creator. It was not my right to harbor such carnal thoughts about you. And yet, short of walking away from you and never seeing you again—something I could not do—I was powerless to stop it.”
“Really? You thought that? You were? I had no idea.”
“And yet it was so. It has been a problem for me, but perhaps this is a problem no more.”
“Yes. I think this is a problem well solved.” They both grinned at each other then dropped into silence. Gathering her thoughts together, she realized she needed to say more. “I think I can safely say that the mathematics and history I have been teaching you will do little to help you free your people. What is it you must do again to break the curse? Show kindness to an enemy?”
“Haa’he, and give aid.”
She paused for the space of a moment, although almost at once another thought occurred to her. “When you first came here, did you think that my brother and I were your enemy?”
He shrugged. “I did not think so then, and I do not think so now, and in truth, never have I thought that way of either of you. However, the same cannot be said for the white man in general, for I have always mistrusted the white man in this country. But you came to me through a good force in my life, and when I saw you, my first impression was that you were an angel sent to me to help me break the spell. I still feel there is some role you are to play in this, though I do not know what it is.”
“I see. And so this is why you agreed to let me teach you at night—you thought I might help you determine what it is that you need to do to break the spell?”
“Perhaps. But in truth, I agreed to let you teach me despite my better judgment. For you must remember that I have been attracted to you all along, and it was an enticement that I thought should not be. Yet, you were, you are, a part of this. And so it seemed only right to let you do what you thought was necessary. It might have helped.”
“But it hasn’t helped, has it?”
“It drew me closer to you. That is a good thing.”
“Yes.” She dropped once again into her own thoughts. Did she know of anything that could truly help him? Could her father be of assistance? With prayer?
Perhaps, but her father wasn’t here.
Uneasily, Angelia stirred. “I fear that I can think of nothing that would help. Perhaps, my husband, you are right, and the white man has very little of the spiritual about him.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But you have already assisted me in many ways.”
“I have?”
“Haa’he, you have. Are we not married? Are we not lying here in one another’s arms? And yet I had once given an oath to the Creator that I would not take a woman to my bed until I had freed my people. But you changed that for me.”
“I?”
“Yes, you. That morning at the river when I sighted you, I saw you, and yet the image before me was not entirely the way you are now. In my vision, I beheld you not as a white woman, but as my wife.”
“Your wife?”
“Haa’he. And it was then that I realized that whether you could help me free my people or not, it was not important. Seeing you as my wife was the Creator’s way of giving me hope. Hope for a future, hope for happiness. In truth, it is more than I have had for many years.”
Angelia gulped. She? She had given him hope? A warm flush swept over her. “Oh, Swift Hawk, what a noble thing for you to say. And it reminds me of how much I love you. But I don’t really know if I can help you. I will try, though.”
She lay back, but no sooner had she done so than another thought occurred to her, and she scooted up so that she could lean onto one of her elbows. “Are you certain that what you are doing now, foll
owing me, is what is necessary to break the spell? I mean, do you think this is where you should be?”
“No,” he admitted, “I am not certain of that anymore. I have had another vision that leads me to believe that there might yet be another path, a different path. After I accompany you and your brother safely to Santa Fe, I will do what I can to pick up this new trail.”
Angelia hesitated and drew her brows together in a frown. But though she was quiet, Swift Hawk did not interrupt her thoughts. After a while, she said, “No.”
“No?”
“No, you shouldn’t take us all the way to Santa Fe.”
Rising up, he smiled into her eyes, then he placed his lips against her forehead. “It is kind of you to release me from my promise, but you must know that I would not be an honorable man if I let you do it.”
“But—”
“Your brother will make mistakes that will bring attention to him—you know that he will. I could not leave here knowing this, for he might attract these bounty hunters to you.”
“Really, I think that—”
“No,” he emphasized the word. “You will not sway me on this. I will see you both safely to Santa Fe. Then I will discover this other trail.” Once more, he lay back against the ground.
She nodded, following his lead and, moving onto her side, she cuddled her body against his. There was something very erotic about discussing such subjects with one’s lover, in the nude, in a lean-to, out on the prairie. Erotic, and yet natural, all at the same time.
“Can you tell me about this other vision?”
He shrugged. “It is not a common thing to share one’s vision with another, for a vision is a private thing, and a man may go his entire life following what the Creator has set forth for him. Even still, the only people who would know of his vision are himself and his medicine man.”
“Oh. I see.”
“But because you are part of this,” he continued, “and a part of my vision, I think that I might speak to you of it.”
She inclined her head gently. “I would like to hear of it, then. Perhaps I might still be able to be of some help.”