Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  He shifted on his haunches, looking past the circle of faces until he found Mati’s, shining white like the poko, the moon. Laughter brightened her eyes as Domem told the tale of mean-spirited Skunk, who’d caused acorns to stink so that women would have to work hard to make them edible. Domem told the story in the Konkow tongue, but his wrinkled nose and crossed eyes were easy enough to understand.

  Domem had always been a good storyteller. Perhaps that was why Mati liked him. But he was never serious. He entertained the children, but the elders didn’t respect his counsel. They said Domem had his mind in the mist, that he was always dreaming of fish, never catching them. Why would Mati want to play the pleasure games with someone so childlike?

  No, he decided, pressing his lips together. She shouldn’t play the pleasure games with Bercha or Domem. His mind made up, he rose from the fireside and beckoned her with a motion of his hand and a questioning lift of his brows.

  Outside her hubo, it took him a long while to gather his thoughts, especially when the moon painted her hair in glowing waves and the touch of her sun-warmed skin was still fresh in his memory.

  "I’ve been thinking," he told her.

  "Indeed?" It was only one word—a fairly meaningless word—but Mati made it sound as cool and distant as the stars.

  He wished Mati could speak his tongue. Konkow was so much simpler, more direct. English seemed like the language of Henno, Trickster Coyote, who might whip around at any time and bite him.

  "On this matter of the pleasure games."

  "Ah."

  "I’ve decided that if it isn’t the way of your people, akina, you shouldn’t play the pleasure games."

  "I see." He didn’t like the look on her face. It reminded him of Towani’s expression when she was about to spin a web of words to trap him. "But I don’t agree. If I’m to dwell among the Konkows, then I should learn the ways of your people." She looked past his shoulder toward the fire, where the children continued to giggle at Domem’s silly antics. "I think Domem might be willing to..."

  He grabbed her by the shoulders, harder than he meant to. "Domem..." Then, confused by his own roughness, he loosened his grip. "Domem is...foolish and simple."

  "Hmm," she said, thoughtfully scratching her cheek. "And Bercha? He’s as handsome as the devil, I must say, and—“

  Sakote let out a growl of exasperation. He shoved a hand back through his hair. How could he make her see?

  He sighed and gazed down at her. Mati’s eyes shone like pebbles at the bottom of the creek. Starlight glazed her hair to the color of sun-dried grass and poured like acorn milk over her shoulders and across her breasts, places he knew now, places that made his fingers tingle to recall.

  He knew the truth, deep in his heart. He couldn’t bear to think of anyone else touching her. Now. Or ever.

  Still, he was reluctant to tell her. If he confessed his love, he had to be willing to make a promise of commitment to her. And once he made that commitment, he’d be left with two choices. He would either have to defy the elders, who’d say Mati was bad luck, or he’d have to leave the village.

  It was too soon to make such a difficult choice. It was customary for a serious Konkow suitor to spend weeks in courting—speaking with his intended’s father, bringing gifts to her family, playing the pleasure games with her, bringing her a deer to prove his ability to provide for her.

  He’d known Mati such a short time. Yet he’d already chosen her. His dreams had shown him the way long before the white woman had even come. They belonged together, Sakote and the white eagle.

  He took a steadying breath and commanded her gaze with his own. "I don’t wish you to play the pleasure games with anyone else."

  The cold glare in her eyes shivered like icicles melting in the sun, but mistrust lingered there. "Really? While you continue to consort with Haikati and Yalalu and...and..."

  "No." He frowned. What was she speaking about? He’d never played the pleasure games with Haikati. Haikati’s heart belonged to another. And Yalalu was his uncle’s daughter. Most of his encounters had been with girls of other Konkow tribes. And they all faded in his memory when he thought of coaxing Mati’s beautiful flower to blossom and remembered the touch of her smooth white hand upon him. "I don’t wish to play the pleasure games with anyone else. My heart is with you. My spirit is with you."

  Despite Mattie’s best intentions to remain aloof, Sakote’s words made her heart flutter.

  All evening, he’d seethed with blatant jealousy. Every time she glanced at Bercha, Sakote curled his lip in disgust. While the rest of the tribe laughed at Domem’s story, Sakote furrowed his brows. True, his jealousy had soothed her damaged vanity, if not her bruised feelings. But this...this was unexpected.

  She looked into his eyes—darkly beautiful as they mirrored the black expanse of the heavens above—and she saw the truth. His heart was with her. He didn’t know the sugared phrases gentlemen used while courting. He offered none of the empty flattery and poetic comparisons that wearied a woman’s ear. But his simple words and his steadfast gaze were far more eloquent than anything she’d ever heard in a parlor.

  Her heart went all soft. "You’re sure?"

  He lifted a brow in question. "Have I not said so?"

  She almost smiled at that—it never occurred to Sakote to lie—but instead, she let her gaze drop to his mouth. Ever since this afternoon, when they’d indulged in things that made her blush to remember, she could think of nothing else but touching him again. Her body felt drawn to him, like iron to a magnet. And this close, where she could see the soft glow of the moon in his eyes and inhale the sensual aroma of his skin, that tug was almost irresistible.

  "I don’t want to...be...with anyone else either," she admitted, her voice a wisp of sound.

  Relief relaxed his features. He tipped her chin up and smoothed the worry from her brow, then framed her face gently in one hand. She held her breath.

  His hair swept like a curtain across her cheek as he bent to kiss her. He tasted of mountain balm tea and the sweet corn flavor of yellow-jacket eggs, but mostly he tasted of Sakote, that wonderful, indescribable ambrosia she’d grown to crave. She drank deep, weaving her fingers through his silky locks, slipping her hands under the edge of his buckskin cloak to trace the surging swell of his chest.

  She longed to toss the cloak off of his shoulders, to tear the breechcloth from him, to see and touch and taste all that she remembered from the waterfall. Her own clothing felt like a tight cocoon from which she might emerge a glorious butterfly. But not here, not in the village, not in plain sight. Children still laughed around the evening fire. Young women flashed coy glances at young men across the flames. And though Sakote’s great body shielded her from their view, she knew the elders cast disparaging looks in her direction.

  She held him close when he ended the kiss and whispered against his mouth before she had the sense to stay silent. "Stay with me tonight. Please."

  He stiffened, and for an instant she feared she’d been too aggressive. But then he clasped her head to his chest, near his rapid-beating heart.

  "Are you inviting me to…stay in your hubo?" he murmured against her hair.

  “Yes.”

  Sakote felt as if his heart would swell and burst. Mati wanted him. She accepted him. And at this moment, nothing else mattered.

  He wouldn’t think about tomorrow. Tomorrow always brought a new sun that lit up a new path. For now he thought only about tonight, a night blossoming with promise, a night he’d remember all of his days. He thought of the sacred stream they’d cross together tonight, he and Mati.

  He grasped her hand and let her lead him into her hubo.

  It was dark except for a few slashes of starlight along the ground left by gaps in the roof. Sakote would have preferred firelight. He wanted to see Mati, to look into her shining eyes as he pleasured her, to see her lips blush from his kiss, to watch her face as her body finally exploded like stars over a waterfall.

  But there wou
ld be time for that later. Tonight they’d travel in darkness. Tonight was only the first step of the journey.

  He navigated by touch, kneeling, then swinging his cloak over the reed mat and mound of pine needles that made Mati’s bed, softening the nest. Mati’s skirts rustled as she knelt before him. He could no longer hear the storyteller’s muffled voice, only the rasping breath of their two hungering souls.

  "It’s dark. I can’t..." Mati whispered.

  Her hands stumbled across his chest, and he caught them, anchoring them against his ribs.

  "See me with your heart," he murmured.

  She sighed, and he ran his thumbs gently over her eyelids to close them. Closing his own eyes and trusting his instincts, he reached out for her lush tresses, her soft cheek, her delicate jaw. She began to caress him as well, gliding along the muscles of his bare chest. Her hands felt so small upon his body, and yet he could feel their magic all the way down to the place where his man’s-knife awoke.

  He widened her jaw with his thumb and covered her open mouth with his, imagining the breath of his spirit flying from him and into her. He moved his lips in a gentle feast, tipping his tongue to hers, so wet and warm that he couldn’t help but compare this blossom to her tempting woman’s-flower. The thought wrenched a groan from him, and she answered by twining her arms about his neck.

  He loosened the laces he’d made for her at the back of her dress, and the garment slipped from her as easily as the sigh slipped from her lips. The filmy gown beneath, sheer as a butterfly’s wing, threatened to tear in his eager fingers, and he wondered if he had the patience to take care with the thing...and with her.

  His hand found its way along the pulsing vessel of her throat, and then stole lower, wrinkling the frail fabric that made a poor guardian of her bosom. Her breast curved perfectly into his hand, as if it were made for him. As he swept his palm over the insubstantial garment, she moaned, and her nipple rose to meet his touch.

  His blood raged now, making whit-tum-tumi, thunder, in his ears. His mouth hungered for her. His man’s-knife demanded sheathing.

  But he wouldn’t be led by his desires. He was a warrior. He was strong. He was a good hunter, because he possessed both strength and patience, and he must use those now.

  Very slowly, so she wouldn’t be frightened, Sakote tugged loose the ties of her underdress, and then pressed Mati back upon the fur-covered reeds. And though the air was chill, he burned as he opened her chemise with his teeth and lowered his head to suckle at her breast.

  Mattie felt as if a bolt of lightning coursed through her body. She arced to meet his mouth as the sweet current struck and echoed on and on. Soon, like a jealous twin, her concealed breast longed for his touch, and after a while he rewarded its yearning flesh as well.

  She entwined her hands through his hair—his glorious, long hair—wishing she could keep him there forever. But he quenched his thirst and kissed his way up to her face, holding her head in his two hands to plunder her mouth deeply with his ravenous tongue.

  Breathless, she clung to him as the world spun around her. She ached for him now, low in her belly, ached for the relief she knew he could bring.

  He ended the kiss, and then nuzzled her cheek until he found the lobe of her ear. His hot breath sent a shiver along her neck.

  "I want to taste you," he murmured. She gasped as his hand slid gently between her legs. "Here."

  "Oh," she cried, unable to speak. Such a thing was indecent, unthinkable, impossible, and yet...her body arched against the pad of his palm with a hunger so sharp it frightened her.

  He took her silence to mean assent, lowering himself toward the center of her lust, and she bit her lip in a torment of anticipation.

  The chemise slid with maddening sloth over her skin as he drew it back from her. For a long moment, all she could feel was the moist heat of his taunting breath along her thighs. Then he kissed her...there...and she gasped with a spasm of excruciating pleasure. A hot river of desire burst from the spot and rushed through her veins, leaving her skin tingling with fire. She flung the back of her hand across her mouth, afraid her cries of sweet agony might pierce the night as he bathed her most secret places.

  She should make him stop. What he did was primitive and wicked and sinful. And yet she found no words to belay his heathen assault, no strength to fight his thrilling seduction. She knew the cliff he led her toward, and all the dragging of her heels made no difference. Once there, she knew she’d leap willingly from that precipice.

  Her body belonged to Sakote. Every inch of her skin prickled with desire for him, as if she were somehow attuned to him—could respond only to his touch and could only be slaked at his bidding. It panicked her, this sensation of entrapment, and yet she trusted him completely. He knew what he was doing. He would be gentle with her. After all, he was experienced in the ways of love.

  Sakote prayed for Wonomi’s guidance, for he’d never taken a woman before in this way. Mati’s feminine scent made him feel as if he were drunk on the white man’s whiskey. But the blood surged in his loins now. He must join with Mati soon, before his man’s-knife wearied of the hunt and grew reckless.

  Leaving one hand to comfort her, Sakote moved up her body, kissing her belly, where one day their child would grow, and the place between her breasts, where her precious heart beat. Beneath the deerskin, his man’s-knife dragged across her thigh as he crept higher, at last capturing her gasping mouth in his own.

  When he turned aside, it was only to quickly unfasten the rawhide lace of his breechcloth. Finally free, his man’s-knife fell heavily upon her hip, and he groaned at the warmth of her flesh on his. He panted against her cheek, unable to think of the English words to speak to her. He knew he should turn her on her belly. It was the way of mating, the way of Coyote and Lizard and Mountain Lion. But he wanted her like this. He wanted to press his heart to hers, to feel her breath, to swallow her cries in his mouth.

  In ragged gasps, he began to say the words of love that would bless their joining.

  Mattie couldn’t understand a word Sakote said. She could scarcely hear anything over the mad rushing in her ears and the moans coming from some primal place deep inside her. But she could feel him, hard and warm and wet, between her thighs. And the ache within her womb became a hollow yearning.

  He nudged at her tentatively, cautiously, but her body would have none of his timid advances. With a wild gasp, she arched up carelessly, enveloping him all at once. His fierce groan drowned out her sharp cry of pain, but did nothing to ease the horrifying burn that suffused her woman’s parts, and she stiffened in fear.

  For a long while, he only held her, his breath labored and shuddery against her neck, and as if by magic, the pain inside her dwindled to a dull throb. Then he began to move, languidly drawing out of her, then returning, until she became aware of every magnificent inch of him. A haze of sensual wonder made her forget the pain and beckoned her to greater delights. Her body danced on its own, answering a rhythm it seemed to know, withdrawing, and then thrusting up to meet him again and again. She thrashed across the rushes, wanting, needing...something.

  She drew her legs up around him, clasping him in a closer embrace, digging her heels into the sleek, flexing muscle of his buttocks. He shivered, growling deep in his throat. She burrowed her head against his chest, bathing her face in his sweat, smothering herself in his essence.

  His growls became more and more urgent, his movements more deliberate, driving her to a reckless frenzy of passion. In one moment, she writhed in delicious anguish. In the next, the breath caught in her lungs, and time suddenly hung like a pocketwatch suspended from a chain.

  Then they sailed free together, soaring breathlessly like they had over the waterfall, until they plunged earthward and their hot bodies sizzled into the cool, calming waters of repletion.

  Sakote was afraid to move. Never had he felt such ecstasy. Mati had shattered him like obsidian beneath the blow of the adz. He dared not shift for fear of crumbling to p
ieces. And yet, he’d never felt more whole.

  The pleasure games were satisfying, but they were nothing like this...this exchange of souls. He felt as one with Mati, as if they shared not only their bodies, but their spirits as well.

  Even here in the dark, he’d never seen his path with such clarity. With Mati, he’d touched the face of The Creator. He knew now the power of a god. He knew what Wonomi intended, why his mother called him He Who Lives in Two Worlds. The Great Spirit wished him to join their two peoples—the Konkows and the whites—by joining with Mati, by making children with her.

  He cupped her face in his hands—Mati, his beloved, his kulem—and for the first time in his life, he felt at peace. Happiness filled his heart and dampened his eyes.

  "My heart is with you, Mati," he breathed again, but this time, the words had true power. Mati was the woman of his heart.

  CHAPTER 25

  For Mattie, the days passed in idyllic bliss. The meadow grew knee-high with deergrass and foxtails. Refreshing spring showers coaxed orange poppies to spring up like bright jewels set in the emerald grass. Often she’d grab her sketchbook and wander off to the woods or down to the stream or toward the rise overlooking the canyon. It was impossible to capture everything on paper, but Mattie returned each day with at least a dozen sketches.

  The Konkows grew accustomed to her habits. They no longer tagged along to spy on her when she left the village to sketch, which was fortunate. Otherwise, they would have learned every intimate detail about her couplings with Sakote. They’d had so many of them, in every possible setting, from the cradling crook of an ancient oak to the bracing cold of the creek bed, that it was a wonder they hadn’t been caught. It made her cheeks flame to recall their last encounter, high on a canyon ledge by the light of the rising sun.