Lifting his lips, he watched her eyes smolder. “How long do you think we have?” His palms slipped up her sides, lifting the shift along with them.
“After they deal with Joaquín, they’ll beseech the Great Spirit to protect them against the soldiers. It’s a ceremony with dancing and chants. Nalin said it’ll take a while.”
Will tried to worry about Joaquín; he tried to worry about Victorio and his people, but he could only rejoice in their gift to him: time. His hands moved past her shoulders, releasing her dress, cupping her face. Caressing her with his gaze, he laved her face with kisses, until he felt her shudder against him.
“On the other hand, greenhorn…” Speaking, she took his hand and led him across the wickiup. “…we don’t have all night.”
That was all it took. But he couldn’t stop kissing her. Slanting his lips across hers, he let his tongue dip and delve. His emotions ran amuck. While his mind played with the dangers inherent in what they were about, his hands busied themselves with more important matters, like working the soft doeskin up her thighs, scrunching it around her hips.
His first touch of her bare, heated skin sent a tremor racing the length of his frame. He clutched her buttocks in his palms, pulled her to him, molded her against him, savoring, demanding, anxious.
“Oh, Will!” She wriggled against him, angling backward for better fit, while her hands gripped his shoulders, and her fingers dug into his flesh. “I keep wanting…something…”
“I know, love.” Talking, he stripped the garment further upward, baring her breasts. His palms covered them. They were hot and full and heavy with need. “I want it, too.” His thumbs strummed her nipples. He gazed into her eyes, watching the blue flame take hold. “You…all of you…that’s what I want.”
He was lost in her now, floating on the musky sweet air, swimming in the liquid blue heat of her eyes, drowning in the heady, insistent want of her. Aided by the drums and chanting that filtered to them from the clearing below, his heart pounded to the erratic cadence of hers. His brain demanded haste; his heart insisted on restraint. For once his heart was right. But right, as usual, was not easy.
Standing breathless beneath his fondling hands, Priscilla felt emboldened, powerful. She clasped her hands behind Will’s neck, drawing his face to hers. When he was close enough, she traced the outline of his lips with her tongue, then ran it across the crease. His lips opened, she boldly dipped inside. When he caught her tongue and began to suckle, her legs grew weak.
He worked to ease the doeskin shift over her shoulders; she helped, wriggling her head through the opening. He tossed it aside without taking his eyes from her body. Grasping her solidly by the shoulders, his gaze traveled up her body and down, lingering here and there.
Priscilla knew she must glow brighter than the meager flame in Nalin’s oil lamp, yet she reveled in Will’s perusal. For he wore an expression of wonder, like he’d never seen a woman’s body before.
Before she could ask him, his hands skimmed over her chest. He lifted her breasts, held them cupped in his palms. They felt so heavy, she thought surely they must have doubled in size. When she looked, he dipped his head and ran his tongue over one nipple, spearing desire in the form of hot liquid straight through her.
“Oh, Will…” She clutched his head, threaded her fingers through his thick hair. He took her nipple in his mouth and began to suckle. She felt like he’d ignited a flame inside her.
Then he lifted his face, and she felt bereft. “Don’t stop.”
His lips possessed hers; his hands skimmed downward, spanned her waist, fanned over her belly, inched lower, oh, so much lower. He cupped her; the heel of his hand ground into the curly patch of hair. His fingers slipped into her wetness and she felt the world spin around her. When he withdrew his hand, she protested again.
“…not enough time…” he was saying. Clasping her buttocks in both hands, he lifted her until her legs locked around his hips. Unsteadily, he bent his knees and lowered her to the floor, depositing her in the middle of a giant black bear pelt. But when she tried to draw him down with her, he pulled back, disentangling himself.
“Wait…” His voice was husky; she could tell his mouth was dry. In the dim light she watched the vein in his neck throb. He worked studiously, accompanied by the distant drums and the little bells in her hair, as he fanned it in drifts about her head. He stretched her arms out to either side, then sat back on his heels and looked at her with such reverence she felt like a deity.
But a deity with no control over her body or her life. “Will…please…”
His eyes returned to hers. She held out her arms. “Come here,” she whispered. Before complying he stripped his shirt over his head, then began unbuttoning his britches, holding her in his gaze, all the while.
She watched, mesmerized, as he unclothed himself, revealing more of a man than she’d ever imagined seeing, and every bit of it was wonderful. By the time he struggled out of his britches and moved toward her, she knew this was the only man she would ever look upon. In her entire life, the only man for her.
Her fingers touched his rippling muscles, traced them down their rigid length, through the brown pelt of hair on his chest, past his darker nipples, down to his slender waist. In spite of all her attempts not to, she couldn’t keep herself from looking further. His arousal was big, hard. She’d never imagined…
Glancing back at his face, she found a grin on his lips.
“Ready to call it off?”
She knew he was teasing, by the sound of his voice, but mostly by the way he moved over her with obvious determination.
She wanted to tease him back, but she couldn’t, her mouth wouldn’t form the words, so she shook her head. Moving her hands around his waist, she tugged until he dipped toward her, nudging her belly with his arousal.
Again she wanted to tease him, but again she was unable to, stopped this time by the grim look in his eyes.
“It’s going to hurt, cowboy.”
She tugged him closer. “No…”
“Yes, just a little.”
But she thought of the days just past, of his rejection, of the horrible thing he’d said to her. “The worst is over.”
If he heard her words, he ignored their meaning, for while she spoke, he slipped a hand between them, slid it over her abdomen, into her wetness. This time he didn’t stop with tender strokes, but delved inside, deep inside, deeper. Her breath came short, her pulse began to race. Fiery heat spread like a range fire over her skin. His eyes delved into hers, while his fingers plunged, again and again and again. Until, at length, her hips began to rise to the thrusts, involuntarily.
She wasn’t at first aware of her movements, but when she realized what she was doing, she knew it was right, good, wonderful…yet, she knew there was more. It was like the time just before sunrise, when the sun inched upward toward the horizon; any minute it would shower her with the brilliant light of another miraculous day.
“Hurry…” she sighed. “Please, hurry.”
Suddenly it wasn’t his fingers that probed, but his body. She felt his arousal, hard and large and hot against her.
Her eyes flew to Will’s.
“It’ll hurt,” he said again. “Just for a moment.”
She nodded, breathless now. What if he was right? He felt so big, so hard, what if…
He scooped her in his arms, rested his forearms on the pelt beneath them, lowered his lips, took hers, and thrust. Tentatively at first, then hard, fast…deep.
She flinched. He held her tighter. Finally, she realized she was holding her breath. She released it, feeling him inside her. Deep inside her. Joining with her. Like they were one. He was hers. And she was his.
She drew their faces a few inches apart. She held his gaze. He loved her. Will Radnor loved her. She could see it in his eyes.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, Will, yes. It’s wonderful. Wonderful. I never imagined it would be…”
Again
, while she spoke, he began to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster. It surprised her. She’d thought it was all over. Not that she’d wanted it to be over. She hadn’t, she’d wanted more, but…
Then she was moving with him, meeting his plunges by lifting her hips, over and over and over. She squinched her eyes closed. Suddenly the sun peeked over the horizon; it moved steadily now, faster and higher…
Until it exploded in a brilliant array of color in her head.
When he felt her climax, Will allowed his own release. It came hot and fast. So fast. Too fast. In a matter of seconds it was over. He collapsed on top of her, rolled to his side, cradled her in his arms.
And her words came back to him. The worst is over. No, he thought, the best is over. The worst is yet to come.
Eleven
“I like the way you finally answered my question.”
Will propped himself on an elbow. Drawing closer he snuggled against Priscilla’s side, felt her skin, as soft and silky as the bear pelt on which they lay. “What question’s that?”
Idly he traced an index finger over her face, feature by feature. The meager light from the oil lamp cast them in shadow.
Priscilla wriggled against him. “That you don’t need a bed.”
“All I need is you, cowboy.” And he meant it. Lordy, how he meant it. But reality pounded at the door he had closed against it in his brain. He felt her breath catch and knew she’d heard the longing in his voice. His finger trailed down her neck, across her chest.
“You’re sure?” she whispered.
“Positive.”
“I mean sure about me…about the way I…”
“If you did anything better, I’d think you were an angel sent to transport me to heaven.” His hand closed over one tender breast, stroking it gently, as though it were the finest jewel. His body sprang to life. “And I’m far from ready to leave this earth.”
“But Will, if it isn’t the way I dress and act, what is it?”
His face hovered above her. Their lips brushed when she spoke. Their breath mingled, sweet and hot. A sudden, incredible feeling took hold of him, the feeling that everything would work out, after all.
How could it not? She was an angel, a princess, everything he’d ever desired, and more. She was things he’d never dreamed of a woman being. One of his mother’s favorite quotes popped to mind, “The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.”
But their way wasn’t mysterious; it was treacherous. Horrendous. Disastrous. Even if they remained forever inside this strange and foreign world of the Apache, even if they never left this wickiup, things couldn’t work out for them, because in his heart he knew the truth.
And this was one truth that would not set him free. This was one truth that would destroy the precious bit of heaven he held in his arms.
“Let’s not ruin tonight, Miss Priss.” He drew her close and loved her with a passion made hotter by the fact that the embers were about to be extinguished for all time.
José Colorado returned to the ranchería the following day, bringing the word Priscilla had anxiously awaited, until Will made his devastating announcement that their relationship had to end once they returned to Spanish Creek.
She didn’t believe that, couldn’t believe it. But Will did. She had no idea what lay behind his assertion, since he refused to give one substantial reason for such a horrendous turn of events. Every reason she thought of, he denied.
“You’re married!” she had whispered, when he rose from their pallet the night before, dressed, and prepared to leave the wickiup. The idea had come to her suddenly and it was devastating.
The council was breaking up. Sounds of chanting and dancing ebbed. Even then, Priscilla hadn’t wanted Will to leave, but he insisted.
“This was too special, cowboy. These people may operate by different laws, but I won’t tarnish your name by allowing them to catch us together.”
She knew it was best. “No telling what Nalin would think. Pa says Victorio’s Mimbreños practice monogamy.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Will questioned. “Considering the gossip about Nalin and Charlie.”
“Pa might have told me that to keep me from believing the gossip.”
“But you do believe it, don’t you?”
“I don’t actually believe it; I just…I’m afraid to disbelieve it.”
“Yet you’ve loved your father through it all. Even if he was unfaithful to your mother…”
“Oh, Will, I know it’s hard to understand. Perhaps if Mama had reacted differently—you know, hurt, angry, but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. I could never truly believe—”
“That Charlie could do anything wrong,” he finished. “You hold Charlie up like a god of some sort.”
Will was right; she couldn’t deny that. But couched as an accusation, his claim put her on the defensive. “Pa’s human,” she acknowledged. “He does wrong things. We’ve had our share of arguments.”
“I don’t mean arguments. I mean sins, crimes.”
“Pa?”
“See? You’d never believe ill of Charlie. You’ll always take his side, even when the opposition proves right.”
“I’ll stand up for Pa, if that’s what you mean. Of course, I will. To the ends of the earth. What difference does that make?”
Will’s eyes probed to the very heart of her. An expression of melancholy, almost primitive in its intensity, turned his features to stone. She didn’t know this man…this stranger. Even after the intimacies they’d shared, she didn’t know him. And that angered her.
“You’ll never understand. I thought you were like him, but you aren’t. He’s forthright, honest. But you, one minute you’re loving, the next you’re cold and distant. And you expect me to take it all in stride, to understand something you won’t even try to explain. Well, I guess I’ve figured it out. What does your wife think about all this? Where is she? Did you leave her behind? Run off and…and abandon her, like you intend to abandon me?”
Will had grabbed her arms, then. He jerked her to him with fierce, angry movements. “I’m not married. I’ve never been married. After this, I—” He kissed Priscilla, hard, rough, demanding. Desperate.
When he looked at her again, she watched moisture glaze his eyes and pool in the corners by his nose. “Since I can’t have you, Miss Priss, I’ll never marry anyone.”
His words stunned her. She hadn’t realized he’d released her, until suddenly he was leaving the wickiup.
Since he can’t have me? “Who said you can’t have me?” she called after him. “You haven’t even bothered to ask. Don’t I have any say…”
He kept walking. She watched him disappear into a womb of darkness. “Ask me,” she cried, a whisper now, though the demand screamed angrily in her head. In her heart.
Priscilla dressed, but by the time Nalin returned to the wickiup, she was still so shaken, she didn’t think to ask about Joaquín, until she realized that Nalin was solemnly performing some ritual. Priscilla’s heart leapt to her throat.
“What happened?”
Nalin had begun to untie the wickiup liner. Her eyes were on some distant scene.
“What punishment did your son receive?”
Nalin’s expression lightened. “He is to accompany The People.”
“It’s settled?”
“Sí. As soon as the son of my husband returns, we will set out.”
“For Tres Castillos,” Priscilla whispered, as though to speak the destination aloud might further curse this band of displaced people.
“For Tres Castillos,” Nalin agreed. “The cihéne have too few young men left to fight the white eyes. Both my sons are needed to go with us into the danger.”
“But I thought you were fleeing to Mexico for safety.”
“From the Americans, sí. But who can say what wickedness the Nakaiyi have in store for us.”
The Mexicans, Priscilla thought, recalling the tale
s Pa had told about bounties. Several Mexican states paid bounties for Apache scalps: one to two hundred pesos for a brave, half that for a woman, and half again for a child. The stories were horrendous. Apache prisoners brought even higher prices, for they could be used as slaves. Yes, Mexico would be a place of last resort, a much-feared place for an Apache.
A hushed mood fell as a pall over the two women. During the next few hours Nalin dismantled the wickiup from the inside, packing hides and skins and cooking vessels. Priscilla helped as best she could.
“How far to Tres Castillos?” she asked once.
“Five suns, I am told. It is a place I have never been and would not go now except for our chief’s foresight.” She left the skins on the ground for sleeping. The last thing before retiring, she enlisted Priscilla’s help in rolling the hide liner that carried not only the history of The People, but of Priscilla’s people, too. When it was done, she presented it to Priscilla with solemn ceremony. “This is for you, daughter of my friend.”
“Oh, no—”
“It is your history, niña.”
Priscilla stared at the heavy roll of hide. Then she studied the somber woman whose life was so linked with her own. She wondered what the paintings on the hide really meant. She still had trouble understanding what had prompted them. Whether fact or fable, however, they had been recorded by the Apache historian.
“We will keep it safe for you,” she told Nalin. “And for your children.”
Impatience to return to Spanish Creek built inside Priscilla, as her mind filled with a multitude of questions to ask her mother. But returning home had a gloomy side, too. She sobered, recalling Will’s insistence that their relationship, such as it was, would end when they arrived back at the ranch.
Suddenly she felt like she’d been awakened from a dream, to find herself in the real world, where everyone seemed bent on keeping secrets from her. The bits and snatches she had learned about her parents these last few weeks were like a few pieces of a large puzzle. A puzzle she hadn’t even known existed until Joaquín’s arrest—and Will’s arrival. Will, too, kept secrets—the most damaging of all, because whatever drove him threatened to separate them forever.
Reluctant Enemies Page 20