Warrior's Embrace

by Peggy Webb

  “Yes,” he said.

  She sat up and pressed her face against his stomach. Her warm breath fanned his skin, and her tongue sent shivers through him.

  “You still wear your knife.” She pulled his weapon from his belt. The blade glinted in the lamplight.

  “A warrior is always prepared.”

  She ran her fingers over his blue-jean-clad thighs. “I can see that.”

  There was a whispering sound as she slid his jeans off. Hawk poised above her, drawing out the anticipation until the room was fairly humming with tension. Elizabeth raked one fingernail lightly down his chest and across his abdomen.

  “Show me, Hawk.”

  For a very long while time suspended. And when he finally cried out his release in Muskhogean, the language of his people, he gathered her close. She was so still, he thought she had fallen asleep; then she lifted herself on one elbow and looked down at him, smiling.

  “Do you think the battle is over, Hawk?”

  He cupped one cheek, tangling his fingers in her damp hair. “Do you dare challenge me?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed, delighted with her. She was all he had imagined and more—much, much more.

  “You’re a sorceress,” he said.

  And then they were lost.

  Just before dawn pinked the sky, she gathered her silk gown off the floor and stole across the room. Hawk lay against the sheets, watching her go. When she reached the door, he spoke.

  “You are mine, Elizabeth.”

  “No, Hawk,” she said, turning slowly. “You are mine.”

  The door closed softly behind her. Hawk closed his eyes, smiling.

  Outside in the hallway, Elizabeth leaned against the door, her heart hammering. What had happened? Hawk was no longer a need she could satisfy, someone she could make love to and walk away from: He was an obsession.

  Elizabeth turned and ran her hands lightly across the bedroom door. “Sleep well, my noble warrior,” she whispered, then walked away.

  o0o

  She didn’t see him the next morning before she left for work. Considering how they had spent the night, she supposed he was sleeping.

  Elizabeth was too energized to sleep. When she entered her workplace, she felt as if she could accomplish miracles. She caught herself humming aloud as she sat at her desk going over her morning reports.

  “My goodness,” she said to herself, laughing. Then she swiveled her chair and looked out the window. She saw Hawk everywhere, in the solid oak tree that graced the corner of the bank parking lot, in the hot sun pouring through the window, in the bird that suddenly rose from the branches and soared toward the sky. It was only a blackbird, but still she thought of Hawk.

  She spent the day dreaming about him. She imagined what he would say to her when she got home from work. She imagined what he would do, where he would take her, where he would touch her. It was all she could do to stay in the bank until closing time. Twice she thought of pleading sickness and going home, just to be with Hawk.

  “Elizabeth McCade,” she whispered to herself when the day was finally over and she was roaring down the highway toward home, “you are a wild woman.” Then she threw back her head and laughed. It felt good to be wild and free again.

  o0o

  Hawk met her at the front door.

  “I’ve waited for you all day,” he said, pinning her against the wall, exploring her with his lips and his hands.

  She dropped her purse and her car keys onto the wooden floor as she wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t care where they landed.

  Their passion escalated quickly, exploding in a frenzy that left them both panting.

  “I’ve wanted this all day, Hawk,” she said, leaning her head against his chest.”

  “So have I, Elizabeth.”

  He carried her upstairs, placed her on the bed, and tenderly undressed her. She lay quietly while he went into the bathroom. She heard the taps turning, heard water running, heard the rattle of bottles as he found bubble bath and dumped it in the tub.

  She stretched, feeling languorous and decadent. When he came back into the room, she smiled at him.

  “There’s nothing like having a love slave in the house,” she said.

  He stalked her, his eyes bright with laughter. When he was standing over the bed, he slowly stripped off his jeans. “Who is the slave, Elizabeth? You or me?”

  “Both of us,” she whispered, reaching for him, reminded of the words they had spoken on the cellar stairs the first day he had come into her life.

  He carried her into the bathroom, and together they got into the tub, heedless of the tight squeeze. They frolicked in the bubble bath, laughing and teasing each other. Their play quickly changed to passion, and they came together in the water.

  Afterward, he wrapped her in a towel and carried her to the bed again. She traced the scars on his wet chest.

  “You’ll be leaving soon.”

  “Yes. We don’t have much time left together.”

  “How long?”

  “Until tomorrow.” He cupped her face, circling his thumbs on her chin. “I leave tomorrow, Elizabeth.”

  The evening shadows lengthened and the moon started its course across the night sky. Hawk and Elizabeth never noticed. Stars came out, one by one, reflecting their brightness against the windowpanes, but the two on the bed paid them no heed.

  o0o

  Around midnight a visitor came calling. He padded lightly through the kitchen and sneaked quietly up the stairs. He hesitated on the landing a moment, getting his bearings, then he eased through the half-open door of Elizabeth’s bedroom.

  Hawk clamped his hand over Elizabeth’s mouth at the same time he reached for his knife. He searched the darkness, looking for a shadow, a glimpse of light clothing, anything that would give him a clue about the intruder. There was nothing... only the soft scurrying sound that had alerted him, and the instinctive sense that he and Elizabeth were not alone.

  He decided to take an aggressive posture. Still holding his hand securely over Elizabeth’s mouth, he spoke.

  “I have a knife, and it’s aimed at your heart. Make one move, and you are dead.” With the blade poised to throw, he released Elizabeth and snapped on the bedside lamp.

  A big tomcat marched across the floor and took his position in a cat basket beside the window.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had a cat, Elizabeth?”

  “I don’t. He’s a stray who sometimes comes to visit.”

  “How does he get in? Through that old cat door in the kitchen?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a soft heart for strays, don’t you?” He smiled.

  “Only cats, dogs, birds. Especially birds.” She ran her hands through his hair.

  “What kind?”

  “Hawks.”

  He kissed her lightly, then stood up and pulled on his jeans.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m going to check things out.”

  She didn’t have to ask why. A cat had sneaked up on him. He was wondering what else might have sneaked in under the cover of darkness.

  “Be careful, Hawk.”

  “Wait right here, Elizabeth. I’ll be back.” He snapped off the lamp and disappeared.

  He moved as quickly and quietly as a phantom. Elizabeth hugged her arms around herself. Tomorrow he would leave just that quickly. There would be no sign that he had ever been there. No sign except the one inside her. Hawk was indelibly stamped on her heart.

  o0o

  Hawk stayed in the black night longer than necessary. There were no intruders in Elizabeth’s house or on her property. Of that he was absolutely certain. Still, he hesitated to go back to her—which was ridiculous, of course. He had known from the beginning that he would leave her.

  He was a warrior. Although he no longer rode into battle armed with bow and arrow as his ancestors had, he was still fighting the same enemy: He was battling those who would destroy his hom
e and eventually his people. The battles were much more sophisticated and the enemy much more subtle. But politics was a dirty and sometimes deadly game, and those who fought against the power and money mongers set themselves in a dangerous position. There was no way he would subject a woman to the kind of life he led, always on the edge of danger, always the point-man, always the target.

  As he circled the grounds once more, he thought of his enemy. The fight over his ancestral land would soon be over. He and his people would be victorious. But there would be other battles, other enemies. Modern man was selfish and greedy. In his hell-bent desire to gain money and power, man was slowly and systematically destroying the world he lived in, with absolutely no thought to future generations—to the air they would breathe, the water they would drink, the kind of world they would inherit.

  Hawk’s ancestors for generations before him had fought for a better, cleaner world, a world in which man lived in harmony with nature; and so would he continue to fight. Hawk would remain strong, and he would fight alone.

  o0o

  She called in sick to the bank the next morning. “I’m afraid I’ve come down with something.”

  Hawk smiled at her over an enormous omelet. After she had hung up and joined him, he took her hand and ran it over his bare chest.

  “What have you come down with, Elizabeth?”

  “Lust.”

  “It must be catching.”

  o0o

  Hawk stayed with her until sunset. They were in the guest bedroom downstairs, with Elizabeth stretched across the covers in disarray and Hawk standing over her, tucking his knife into his belt.

  They stared at each other with everything they wanted to say bottle inside. They had already said good-bye in a thousand inventive ways.

  “Don’t forget your rifle,” she finally said, breaking the long silence.

  Hawk put one hand tenderly on her cheek. “Elizabeth...”

  “Go,” she said, looking up at him. “Go quickly.”

  She watched until his hand was on the doorknob, and then she couldn’t bear it any longer. “Hawk!” He turned around. He was so still, he might have been cast in bronze. “Good luck,” she whispered.

  “Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said, and then he was gone.

  Hawk now a part of her past.

  o0o

  Elizabeth learned of Black Hawk’s exploits through the newspapers and the reports on the local television station. “Black Hawk Lives,” the headlines proclaimed the day after he had left her. There was even a picture of him, magnificent as he sat on his black stallion, granting his interview to the press. “We will never back down,” he was quoted as saying. “We will fight to the end for what we believe to be right. We fight not merely for ourselves, but for all people. We fight to preserve the past and ensure the future.”

  She saw the interview on the six o’clock news and again at ten. Black Hawk dominated her den, almost as if he had stepped off the television screen and come back to her.

  Five

  The summer days dragged by. Elizabeth counted the hours since Hawk had gone, then she counted the days, and finally the weeks.

  She could no longer stand her life. The things she had once considered safe—going directly home after work, shunning all but an absolute minimum of social engagements, shutting herself away from the world—began to pall.

  She searched the papers, looking for something to do, someplace to go—a movie, a concert, anything to get her out of the house. There was going to be a rally on the town square that very evening, a gathering of citizens concerned about “progress without conscience.” Black Hawk would be the speaker.

  o0o

  Hawk saw Elizabeth on the fringes of the crowd. She was wearing a stern suit, and her hair was tightly bound by pins.

  His voice never faltered. He stood on the stage as if nothing had happened, but in his mind he had her in his arms; he was pulling the pins from her hair, stripping off her severe suit to reveal the sexy, lacy lingerie he knew she would be wearing underneath.

  He finished the speech to thunderous applause, then climbed down from the stage and started toward her. The crowd hampered him. He was stopped for questions, for congratulations, for interviews. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that she lingered, waiting for him.

  Finally he was able to reach her side. She stood in the shadows of the World War II monument in a corner of the square.

  “You came to see me, Elizabeth.”

  “Yes.”

  “You came to join my cause?”

  “I’ve always been sympathetic to your cause. I needed no persuading. Though you do have great powers of persuasion.”

  As the crowd left, they studied each other in the darkness. Soon they would be entirely alone.

  “I don’t want you to be seen alone with me, Elizabeth. My enemies are dangerous.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek so swiftly, so briefly, she didn’t even see him move. After his hand was gone, she had only the warm spot on her skin to tell her that he’d touched her.

  “It’s not your cause that draws me, Hawk. It’s you.”

  “Elizabeth... We can’t continue.”

  “I know.” She fought against the urge to reach for him. “I just had to see you again. I guess I had to convince myself that you’re real. Our time together seems like a dream.”

  “No, it was real.”

  His gaze burned over her once more, and then he was gone. Elizabeth sagged against the monument. She had come looking for trouble, and she had found it. One look at Hawk, and she was totally out of control. At that moment she would do anything, go anywhere, risk everything to be in his arms once more.

  Fortunately for her, he had had the good sense to walk away.

  When she got home she stripped off all her clothes, ripped the pins from her hair, and scrubbed herself under the shower until she felt raw, as if she could wash Hawk out of her system. She dressed in the skimpiest lingerie she had, a minuscule bit of black lace and sheer silk, cut high on the sides and deep in the front and back. Then she paced the floor.

  By midnight she was exhausted. She climbed into bed and fell into a fitful sleep.

  A hand over her mouth awakened her.

  “Don’t scream.”

  Hawk! Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. He was bending over her, dressed in the same buckskin shirt and jeans he had worn to the rally. The hilt of his knife gleamed in the darkness.

  She reached for him, and his mouth slammed down on hers. They kissed without restraint and without mercy, as if he had just returned from war.

  “I didn’t mean to come back, Elizabeth.”

  “I know.”

  “I couldn’t stay away. Not after seeing you again.”

  “I’m glad.” She reached for the lacings on his shirt and began to pull them apart. Then she plunged her hand into the opening and pressed it flat on his chest. She could feel the hammering of his heart.

  “I came through the tunnel so no one would see.”

  “Right now I don’t care if the whole world sees.”

  “I won’t endanger you, Elizabeth.”

  “Shhh.” She put her hand over his mouth. “Don’t talk. I don’t want to waste a moment of our time together talking.”

  He shed his clothes quickly and joined her in the bed. The explosiveness of their passion threatened the antique bed. For one hour they loved, for two, and still they couldn’t get enough.

  When their passion was finally spent, Hawk spread Elizabeth’s hair across the pillow and kissed her cheek. “You’re mine,” he whispered. And then he was gone.

  o0o

  Gladys eyed the clock the next morning when Elizabeth came into work.

  “Will wonders never cease? You’re ten minutes late.”

  “Traffic,” Elizabeth said. She had slept right through her alarm clock. Only by the grace of God and the early morning sun coming through a crack in her curtains had she been able to wake up at all.

  She hurried
past Gladys in what she hoped was her usual manner and shut herself up in her office. Hawk had not said he would be back. That didn’t matter. She would go to him—secretly, just the way he had come to her.

  It was still daylight when she left work. Through a series of discreet phone calls and careful inquiries, she had found out where Black Hawk was now living. Since his house had burned, he was staying in a small hunting cabin in the forest bordering his land.

  She took the winding gravel road that led deep into the Chickasaw tribal lands to his ranch. It was a vast spread with well-kept fences and carefully groomed pastures.

  She drove slowly, but not so slowly as to call attention to herself. Black Hawk was careful not to mark them as a pair. She would be too.

  After she had satisfied herself that she could find her way back in the dark, she turned onto a side road and made her way home.

  When ten o’clock came, she dressed carefully, let down her hair, grabbed her gun, and made her way into her cellar. Black Hawk had shown her the secret passageway. She pulled aside the loose brick that hid the latch, then entered the tunnel. It was dark and damp.

  She took a deep breath and plunged ahead.

  It seemed hours until she came to the end of the tunnel. Resolutely she climbed out and brushed the dust and twigs from her skirt. Then she tried to orient herself.

  In the darkness all the trees looked the same. There were vast stretches of forest all around her, and there seemed to be no way out.

  “Don’t panic,” she whispered. “You can do this.”

  She looked upward, located the moon, and began to track. There were no signs of Black Hawk. She hadn’t expected to find any. He was not the kind of man who would leave a trail.

  It took her thirty minutes to find his cabin. Keeping in the shadow of the trees, she made her way forward. She had almost reached the door when she heard him speaking from somewhere behind her.

  “Don’t move.”

  Slowly she turned toward the sound of his voice. “Hawk. It’s Elizabeth.”

  He had her in his arms so fast, she thought a whirlwind had overtaken her. With one hand clamped firmly over her mouth, he carried her into his cabin, kicked the door shut, and set her on her feet.

  “You could get hurt sneaking up on me like that.”