Wild Desire

by Cassie Edwards

  “Damon?” Stephanie and Runner spoke at once.

  “Yes,” Sharon said in a low hiss. “Damon Stout.”

  Stephanie and Runner were both rendered speechless by this newest discovery.

  Hate for Damon, sour and pitiless, twisted in Runner’s gut.

  Chapter 19

  I love you for putting your hand

  Into my heaped-up heart.

  —ROY CROFF

  Stephanie broke the awkward silence. “You are Damon Stout’s sister?” she said.

  She looked slowly around her again, at the squalor. How could anyone send their sister away to live in such deplorable conditions? she thought incredulously. Even Damon!

  “Damon is my blood kin,” Sharon said solemnly. “But I don’t like to admit that he is actually my brother.”

  “I can see why,” Runner said, walking slowly around the room, studying the disarray. “Any man who allows his sister and her child to live like this is not a man at all. He is a coward of the worst kind.”

  Stephanie shook herself out of her shock. She went and knelt down before Sharon. She gazed sadly at the baby who was struggling to get milk from the small, thin breast. Then she looked up at Sharon, saddened anew over her pallor. Her eyes were like two dark coals in her drawn flesh.

  “We’re going to take you out of here,” Stephanie said, running her hand over the baby’s dirty, scab-infested scalp. “I will pay for your stay at the hotel. You will be given food, clean clothes, and water for a bath. Tonight you will be sleeping on a clean bed. Your son will be given clothes and warm, clean blankets.”

  Sharon listened with parted lips and wide eyes. She slipped her breast back inside her dress. “Why would you do this for me and my son?” she asked, tears flooding her eyes. “I stole from you. I watched you leave the pack mule with the saddlebags on it. When you and this man went to the lunchroom, I took everything that I could carry. I was going to sell them tomorrow to whomever would pay me the highest price.”

  Stephanie interrupted. “My name is Stephanie,” she murmured. She gestured with a hand toward Runner. “This is Runner.”

  Sharon hung her head in shame. “I’m sorry for having stolen from you,” she said, “but I was going to buy some milk. I need milk to give my son the nourishment he needs. Or . . . or . . . he might die.”

  Runner took the child into his arms. “Neither of you will die,” he said thickly. “Come with us. Tonight you will stay in the white man’s establishment. Tomorrow you will go with me to my village. My people will welcome you with open arms, as they did me, so many years ago.”

  Stephanie marveled over what Runner was offering. She knew the depths of his hate for Damon Stout; it matched her own. Yet he was taking Damon’s blood kin into his heart and village.

  Then she smiled slowly. She understood that he was not doing this only from kindness but also to irritate Damon when he discovered where his sister had been taken. No matter how much Damon had neglected his sister, there was no way on this earth that he would want her living with the Navaho. He hated the Navaho with a passion. When he did discover where she was and he went for her at the village, it would give the Navaho much pleasure to deny him his blood kin.

  Sharon’s body was racked with heavy sobs. “I’ll never be able to repay you,” she cried, clutching Stephanie as she rose from her chair.

  Stephanie winced at the feel of the fragile sharpness of Sharon’s bones.

  “All of my family, but Damon, is dead,” Sharon moaned. “I never want Damon to know that I have a child. If he did, he’d take him away from me. Don’t let him. Please don’t let him.”

  “How have you kept your brother from knowing about the child?” Runner asked. He held the baby in the circle of one arm and used his free hand to steady Sharon as Stephanie stepped away from her to get her camera equipment.

  “No one knows about Jimmy,” Sharon said, sniffling. “I never take him from the house. When I leave to steal from people, I always hide him beneath blankets. I didn’t want Damon to know. If he took Jimmy to raise him, the child would turn out to be as mean, ugly, and cruel as my brother.”

  “His name is Jimmy?” Runner said, gazing down at the child, whose wide, blue eyes studied him. “That is a nice name. But when he grows older, I would hope though that you would allow him to take on a Navaho name.”

  “A Navaho name?” Sharon said softly. Her eyes studied the child’s face.

  “I was born with the name Trevor,” Runner said, slowly rocking the child back and forth in his arms. “When my mother died and I was taken in by the Navaho, to be raised as one with them, the name Runner was given to me.” He smiled over at Stephanie, then at Sharon as he gave her the child. “The name Runner was chosen by my adopted father Sage because of my ability to outrun the rest of the boys in the village while we played games.”

  “I’ve never thought much about Indians,” Sharon said, closely scrutinizing Runner. “But you’re a white man, and it looks to me like they’ve treated you kind enough. I guess they will treat me and my Jimmy with the same kindness.”

  She smiled over at Stephanie as she came to her side. “Leastways, I’ll be safe, won’t I?” she murmured.

  “Very,” Stephanie said, returning the smile. “Now, let’s go and get you that hotel room.”

  They left the shack and went to the hotel. Runner didn’t know about the room awaiting him and Stephanie, and she didn’t see the need in telling him. If they were going to wait for Sharon and the child to have a full night’s rest in a warm, comfortable hotel room, she could just suggest they sleep there themselves, so they could be there to take her to Runner’s village tomorrow.

  She smiled to herself. Things were working out for everyone, it seemed.

  Runner took a guarded step into the hotel room with Stephanie. It was on the same floor and only a few doors from where Sharon and Jimmy were being seen to.

  Stephanie was thinking about Sharon. She would never forget the tenderness in the woman’s eyes as she had carried her child into the clean room. That was enough payment, in itself, for Stephanie. The theft had been forgotten as quickly. To be sure, though, that no one else had the opportunity to steal her camera equipment, she had it safely in her arms now, while Runner carried the tripod.

  She gave a wicked smile to Runner as he moved farther into the room that was aglow with the soft light from two kerosene lanterns on tables flanking the large, luxurious four-poster bed. She had put more than equipment in her saddlebags: she had slipped something thin, lacy, and pretty into one of them.

  “I have not seen such a room since Mother died,” Runner said, leaving the tripod leaning against a wall. He looked down at the plush carpet, soft as silk beneath his moccasined feet. Laughing softly, he walked gingerly in circles over it.

  Then he walked over to the bed and pushed a hand against the mattress, finding it softer than the down from beneath an eagle’s wing. He stroked the red satin sheets, finding them sleek and wonderful.

  Then he cast a suspicious look over his shoulder when he spied a bottle of champagne and two long-stemmed glasses on the table beside the bed, as though someone had planned it all to be this way.

  “Champagne?” he said in a slow drawl. “If I did not know better, I would suspect that my woman had planned ahead of time to lure me to this room.”

  Stephanie lay the saddlebags aside and went to Runner. “And what if I did?” she said in a soft purr. Her hands crept up inside his shirt. She ran them over his broad, muscled chest. “Of course I had no idea our arrival here would be delayed. But I don’t mind. It was wonderful to see the delight in Sharon’s eyes. By now, she has probably taken a long, leisurely bath. I imagine Jimmy is spotless.” She frowned. “It might take awhile for the sores on his head to heal, though. Poor, dear child.”

  “My woman’s compassion runs deep,” Runner said, lifting his arms as Stephanie drew his fringed shirt over his head.

  “No more deeply than yours,” Stephanie said, tossing his shi
rt aside. She smiled sweetly up at Runner as her fingers moved to the waist of his breeches. She unfastened them and began slowly, seductively pulling them over his lean, narrow hips. “But let’s not talk of compassion. Let’s only concentrate on the moment. I have all sorts of ideas. Care to share yours with me?”

  “I do not plan to tell you,” Runner said, stepping out of his breeches. “I will show you.”

  “You don’t care that I planned this room of seduction without your knowledge?” Stephanie said, as his fingers began unbuttoning her blouse.

  His breath caught in his throat as Stephanie reached one of her hands to his manhood and stroked it. He closed his eyes, smoldering passion spreading through him.

  “I love you so,” Stephanie whispered, then moved her hand away and finished undressing him.

  Runner opened his eyes. They were ablaze with need. He started to pick Stephanie up, to carry her to the bed. But she shook her head and stepped away from him.

  “Not yet,” she murmured, her eyelids heavy as rapture began to claim her. “I’ve got something to do first.”

  Runner questioned her with his eyes when she turned from him and grabbed her saddlebags and took them with her behind a folding screen.

  “I won’t be long,” she said.

  Runner watched as one by one Stephanie’s clothes were laid across the top of the screen. He was puzzled as to why she would need such privacy to undress. His heart raced with anticipation at the thought of running his hands again over her silken soft body.

  Finally, totally nude, Stephanie slipped into her slinky, clinging, black, lacy silk nightgown. She ran her hands down her body, causing the gown to cling to her flesh, her nipples firm and erect beneath the black fabric.

  Lifting her hair so that it tumbled from her shoulders and down her back in rivulets, Stephanie stepped from behind the screen and smiled at Runner’s expression as he stared at her, his eyes and mouth wide.

  After enjoying his close scrutiny a moment longer, Stephanie twined her arms around Runner’s neck and drew his hard and ready body against hers.

  “Your eyes tell me that you like what I am wearing,” she teased.

  She leaned her lips close to his and flicked her tongue across his lips.

  “You wear a sort of garment that Runner has never seen before on any woman,” he said thickly. “And, yes, I approve. You are always beautiful. But tonight you are a vision.”

  Runner’s hands went to her breasts and cupped them through the silken material of the gown. Stephanie moaned and ground her body into his as his mouth joined hers, hot and eager. Through the thin fabric of her gown, she could feel the throbbing length of his manly need.

  She slipped a hand between them and encircled his velveteen shaft with her fingers. She heard him moan and felt his body stiffen when she started moving her hand on him, in awe of the heat that she felt against the coolness of her fingers.

  Runner’s heart pounded so hard, he was dizzied by it. He reached for her hand and gently eased it away from him. He then grabbed Stephanie up into his arms and carried her to the bed.

  His fingers went to the hem of her gown and slowly began pushing it upward, stopping momentarily to kiss each part of her as it was uncovered.

  She shivered with ecstasy when he kissed and taunted the insides of her thighs. She closed her eyes and sucked in a wild breath of pleasure when he kissed his way slowly upward.

  Smoothing the gown on past the crown of hair at the juncture of her thighs, Runner leaned down low over her and flicked his tongue against the center of her desire. Then he nestled his face into the soft fronds of her hair and kissed and nibbled at her tightened bud, the tip of his tongue swirling . . . moist . . .

  “Runner,” Stephanie whispered, reaching her hands to his head, twining her fingers through his hair.

  She urged him closer as she moved her legs farther apart. “What you are doing? Oh, Runner. . . .”

  Runner’s tongue titillated her there for a moment longer. Then he scooted the gown farther up her body, so that her breasts were exposed, beckoning him to them. His hot and hungry mouth on her flesh, Runner kissed his way across Stephanie’s flat tummy, causing it to quiver. Then he moved his body over her, his lips inhaling the nipple of one of her breasts into his mouth: he sucked; he flicked his tongue around it; he licked it.

  Stephanie groaned and tossed her head with pleasure, and when he nudged her knees apart and he slipped his throbbing need inside her, a delicious languor stole over her.

  With rhythmic motions, he began to move within her. Stephanie slipped her gown over her head, then placed her hands on his cheeks and drew his lips to hers.

  She gave Runner a meltingly hot kiss, a wild, exuberant passion swimming through her. She sought the feel of his sleek, muscled back, then moved her fingers lower, anchoring them against his tight buttocks. She pressed her hands against him, urging him deep inside her, the silver flames of desire leaping ever higher within her.

  Stephanie arched her head back as Runner buried his lips along the delicate column of her throat, his hands kneading her breasts. Then he showered heated kisses over her breasts, the feelings soaring through him blazing . . . searing . . .

  Feeling the intensity of his pleasure, he anchored her fiercely still. He gave her a kiss of total demand as they both gave in to the rapture, the silent explosion of their needs accompanied by their sighs and groans.

  For a moment longer they clung to one another, then Stephanie slipped from beneath him. “The champagne,” she said, running her fingers through her hair as she stepped delicately onto the plush carpet. “We must drink champagne. Don’t you think we have much to celebrate, darling?”

  She turned to him and took his hands and leaned over him, brushing a kiss across his lips as he stretched out on his back. “We have us to celebrate,” she said, giggling as she went to the bottle of champagne and removed it from its bucket.

  She took the bottle back to Runner. “Would you please?” she asked, handing him the bottle to uncork.

  Runner took the bottle. He sat up on the bed and rested against the headboard, then began reading the label.

  “Champagne,” he said softly. “I recall my mother and father drinking champagne when I was a child.”

  “It’s what most people drink when they are celebrating one thing or another,” Stephanie said, plopping down on the bed beside him. “It’s wonderful and bubbly. It’s a delight to drink.”

  Runner frowned and shoved the bottle back into her hands. “I did not drink the wine at the lunchroom. Nor will I drink this now. I do not drink alcohol of any kind,” he said flatly. “I understand its evil. Some of the young Navaho braves, and even some of our older warriors, have found a strange sort of solace in alcohol. It is best that I do not practice what my father and I have both preached against.”

  Stephanie stared disbelievingly at him. “Darling, just one wee little glass won’t harm anyone,” she pleaded. “Please? For me? It is a fun thing to do between two people in love. I absolutely guarantee that you will not get drunk on such a small amount of alcohol.”

  When he folded his arms stubbornly across his chest and tightened his jaw, she started to rise off the bed. Instead, she stopped and looked mischievously up at him. She struggled with the cork for only a moment, and then it popped from the bottle. As the fizz rolled over the sides, she licked it up with her tongue, and then she turned and leaned over Runner.

  She heard his gasp of shock as she began slowly trickling the champagne over his stomach, making a trail downward, until she reached that part of him that lay spent amidst his frond of dark hair.

  Slowly, she allowed some of the champagne to drip from the bottle onto him there, watching his eyes as surprise leapt into their depths.

  “What . . . are . . . you doing . . . ?” Runner gasped.

  Stephanie set the bottle aside, and before he could stop her, she leaned low over him and began licking the champagne from him, starting with his manhood.

&nbs
p; She felt him growing against her mouth as she continued licking until the champagne was absorbed. Her hand circled him, and she began working it slowly up and down as she licked her way past it and on up his stomach. She placed her hands at his waist and urged him down again, so that she could stretch herself over him.

  “You see, darling?” Stephanie murmured against his lips. “The champagne is worth something, isn’t it?”

  Runner laughed huskily. He took her by the waist and positioned her above him, then thrust his throbbing member into her. “You are a wench,” he said, his hands smoothing upward, cupping her breasts.

  Giggling, Stephanie held her head back, the fever within her building. She was only half aware of the soft, whimpering sounds coming from her.

  Damon woke with a start. He slapped away the hand that was shaking him and leaned up on an elbow. The moon was casting its light in soft streamers through his bedroom window, giving him a good look at the person who dared to wake him in the middle of the night.

  “It’d better be good, Joshua,” he said, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. He grabbed a blanket and slung it around his shoulders. “Why’re you here? Did you catch a damn Navaho stealin’ horses?”

  “I saw a Navaho tonight, but not exactly stealin’,” Joshua said, leaning his pockmarked face down into Damon’s. “It’s your sister. Would you believe that Runner and Adam’s sister took Sharon from her shack and to a fancy hotel? And that ain’t all I seen tonight.”

  “Well? Get on with it,” Damon said in a rumble. “What else did you see?”

  “You’ve got a nephew or niece,” Joshua said, shrugging. “I couldn’t tell which. All’s I know is, Sharon was carryin’ a baby when she went into the hotel.”