Instead there was this river of things flowing through him, putting distance between them.
Her voice came softly into the breach. “I really miss my parents. Joleen and I were very, very lucky. They loved us and they loved each other, and we had the most comfortable, warm childhood you can imagine.”
“So did Luke. His father loved his mother like a wild man. I knew it even when I was a kid.” Daniel leaned back again, remembering. “When she died it just about killed him. I remember he came back to the reservation and he’d turned into an old man overnight.”
“That was the one thing that was good about my parents’ death. At least they got to go on together, and one didn’t have to spend the rest of their life missing the other one.”
Daniel nodded. “I used to be jealous of Luke’s mom and dad. I’d see them, kissing and messing around when they didn’t think anybody was looking, and I’d be so jealous I could just have killed someone. I’d get home, and there was my mom, all by herself, or with her boyfriend of the moment, and all those kids.” He shook his head. “But when Luke’s mom died, I decided it would be better never to love that much than lose it all. Maybe my mom was the lucky one.”
“Do you really believe that, Daniel?”
Knowledge that this was the moment of truth made Daniel hesitate. If he said he did, which was the honest answer, he might lose any chance to make love to her. If he lied to reach his objective, he’d be no better than a dog. He took a breath and let it go. “Yes,” he said quietly, tossing a bit of stick at his toe. Bull’s-eye. “I really do. There are no guarantees in life. It makes no sense to put faith in things you can’t control. It puts you at the mercy of everything.”
“Oh, Daniel.”
She said it so sadly he couldn’t stand it. That was it, then. He’d done the right thing. He’d let her go, and there wouldn’t be any moral question in any of it. And since there was no point to this conversation, he ought to just go back inside and do something useful with his time.
But he didn’t move. There was an ache in his chest he hadn’t noticed until just now, and he felt as if he could cry.
Until she touched him, he didn’t know Winona had moved so close. She put her hand on his upper arm, as though to hold him in place, and pressed her mouth to his cheek. The dog groaned as she put him aside and moved closer, feathering her mouth over the side of Daniel’s face.
Daniel closed his eyes at the tenderness of the gesture, trying to swallow the ache in his chest, the ache that filled his throat, making it impossible to speak.
Her mouth moved to his ear, and she kissed him there, too, delicately, sweetly. Then his temple. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t speak.
She put her hand on his face, rubbing lightly. He turned his head and looked at her. Her pale eyes caught some of the lightning and flashed, and all he could see was that colorless light.
Then she bent her head close again, her hand cupping his face, and kissed his mouth.
The ache in his heart burst, and he felt the damage send slivers all through his body, stabbing everywhere. Something told him to run, to stop, but instead he felt his breath leave him. Her mouth was soft and giving and warm, her tongue a moist thrust against his own. He lifted his hands and threaded his fingers through her weightless hair, touching her scalp and her ears.
“Ah, Winona,” he said, and shifted, putting her back to the wall so he could have greater access to her.
He kissed her chin, lingering, tasting the point with his tongue, and he put his hand on her chest, above her bodice, resting there while he kissed her face—her nose and lips and eyes and the smooth, wide forehead. And this time, there was nothing passive about her movements. He felt her hands work on the buttons of his shirt, and her hand stole inside, her fingers cool against his flesh.
Recklessly he pushed the straps of her tank top and bra off her shoulder, and stroked the silky skin below. He kissed her neck and the upper swell of her breasts, and she made a soft sound of encouragement.
He closed his eyes, moving his face against her breasts, slowly, reveling in the supple flesh, smelling heat and hunger and whispers of talcum powder. He curled his hand around her waist, and pressed a line of small kisses to the edge of skin around her neckline before he lifted his head.
“Come inside, Winona,” he said, and barely recognized his voice as his own. So rough it sounded. So hushed.
She nodded. He stood up and took her hand to pull her to her feet. Percival padded after them, and the puppy was the first to go inside.
Daniel paused at the threshold, looking nearly eye-to-eye with this fragile and strong woman. “This isn’t a marriage vow, Winona. You have to know that. It’s only now, only—”
Her smile was infinitely female, infinitely mysterious, as she lifted her hand and spread her fingers over his lips. “I know,” she whispered. Then she turned and tugged his hand, pulling him through the door. In the hall she paused, as if uncertain whether to go to his room or to hers. For reasons he didn’t examine, Daniel wanted her in his bed. He backed her into the room, holding her hand, looking at her face.
Against the flickering light from the window, her hair was a nimbus, her eyes great, deep pools, her mouth a sinful promise of welcome. Daniel was filled with some wide and nameless thing, and he pulled her close, enfolding her in his arms, pressing her body into his, tightly, tightly, inhaling the smells of her skin and her hair and just her own particular essence. He didn’t have to stoop. Her head fit exactly into the curve between his jaw and shoulder. And nothing had ever felt like this, like holding Winona Snow in his arms, feeling so much of her against him—her arms circling his waist naturally, her breasts close against his chest. He buried his face in her hair, kissed her neck and stroked her back. He wanted to say something, something to tell her what this felt like, so deep and wide, like the old gospel song, but he couldn’t speak.
So he lifted his head and kissed her, and skimmed his hands below her shirt, touching the heat of her back with as much of his hands as he could press to her skin, flattening his hand so even the cup of his palm could partake. His fingers stumbled on the back strap of her bra and he unhooked it deftly, on the first try, and felt her breasts flow against him with the release.
And her mouth was as giving as it seemed to promise, and there were soft sweet sounds coming from her throat. Hungry sounds, pleasured sounds. He opened his mouth and licked her lips and she sighed, and her hands moved to his buttocks, to pull him closer.
He forgot everything then, forgot the aches, forgot the girls sleeping downstairs, forgot the tight holds he’d kept over himself for more than a quarter of a century. For the first time in his life, he let go and fell into the moment. Urgently he pulled her shirt over her head, taking the bra with it.
He forgot that he’d imagined a slow and skillful seduction, forgot those visions of tearing her clothes with his teeth. It became, ultimately, very simple. He fell to his knees and gathered her close and put his mouth, his whole mouth, on her breast, tasting first the silky, infinitely soft flesh, then the pebbled edge where one small hair grew, edging it with the very tip of his tongue. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and he knew it pleased her.
At last he put his mouth on her nipple, and tasted it, the center and the sides and the edges, feeling lost in the pleasure it gave her, in the sounds she made, in the unconscious way she shifted her hips as his tongue flickered, his mouth tugged, his lips rolled. Her breath was faint and hurried as he slid from one side, down the sloped valley and up again, to tease and taste and suckle the other side.
Her hands found the tie at the end of his braid and he felt her loosening his hair, threading her fingers through it, and he was grateful, so grateful, that he had something that would please her so much. It pleased him, too, when he felt the familiar and somehow new sensation of it tumbling on his shoulders and down his back. Her fingers plunged into it, and she swayed forward, her limbs trembling.
“Daniel,” she whispe
red. “I’m so dizzy.”
“Yes,” he said, and stood to lead her to his bed, where there would be no need of bracing.
She fell on the pillows, his pillows, and he took an instant to kick off his shoes and shed his shirt, looking at her in the cool, pale light cast by the cloudy sky and flickering, dry lightning. A shimmer on her lower lip showed the mark of his mouth, and her hair spilled around her like moonlight, and her strong body, naked to the waist, was as pagan and beautiful as the red sky of dawn. Momentarily stricken, he only touched her with his eyes, kissing the pearled tips of her breasts, the shadowed hollow of her navel—“Daniel,” she said, her voice raw with need, and held out her arms.
He groaned and went to her, straddling her at the hips so he could see her and touch her all at once. And now he had words. So many. “Your breasts are beautiful,” he said, tracing them with the index fingers of each hand. “They’re like little pumpkins.” He touched the aroused nipples and smiled. “These are the stems.” He bent to suck them, once, hard, and took pleasure in the strangled cry she gave.
“I like your hair, too,” he said, putting his fingers into it, “and I know you like mine. Do you want to feel it on those pumpkins, Pooh?” He moved a little against the arch of her hips.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed.
With a strange, dizzy joy, he complied, bending forward to cup her breasts in his hands, letting his hair fall over his shoulders to swish over his fingers, her breasts, her arms. Her hands fell on his thighs, and moved urgently as he began anew to tease and taste, a wildness rising in him at the excruciating pleasure.
She moaned, and with a sudden move that unbalanced him, shifted to put her hands on his arms and rolled him. Before he quite knew what had transpired, she was straddling him, her feminine heat against the hardness that threatened to burst his jeans.
He groaned at the provocative press of her hips. Cloud light tumbled over her, and she looked like a goddess—one of those powerful women of legend, her breasts a ripe temptation, her shoulders gilded, her tousled mass of hair defying the night.
And now she took on the confidence of the physical woman who so powerfully managed all her realm. A ripe smile, as old as woman, bloomed on those tempting, perfect lips, and her fingers scraped down his belly. “I like your hair,” she said, and her voice was almost unbearably seductive and low, “but I bet I’ll like other things, too.”
Her fingers worked the buttons of his jeans, teasing with knowing pressure the aching flesh below the cloth. One by one she unbuttoned him, and when his manhood sprang free as if a dancer making a wild leap, she laughed deep in her throat. Her hand closed around him. “Jack-in-the-box!”
He was out of his mind with hunger, but he sensed she needed to play with him, to please him, just as he’d wished to please her. So he lifted his hips and let her take his jeans from his body, and closed his eyes when she paused, as he had, to look at him.
Her hands moved all over him, and her mouth touched his collarbone, his nipples, the flat of his belly. Her mouth, sweet and hot, teased him ever so slightly, hesitantly, but it was too much. “Winona,” he said, hoarsely in protest, and captured her with a swift move, so that she was below him once more.
It was unexpectedly erotic to be naked when she was not—yet—and he kissed her, putting his chest against hers, his thigh on her jean-clad one, while he opened her jeans and slid his hand inside, lower and lower, until he found the wet and waiting heat.
No, he couldn’t wait any more. With a fierce movement, he shifted and tugged her pants and the wispy little panties off, leaving them at last flesh to flesh.
And again there was a hushed pause between them. Daniel looked at her, touched lightly the pale triangle of hair at her thighs, and she reached for him, stroking in wonder the fierce point of his member. Their lips met, tongues exploring while fingers teased and traced and learned the new contours of the most carefully guarded hearts of the other.
When Daniel could no longer bear it, he turned and put himself over her, feeling his hair come down in a cloak around their faces. He nudged her heated opening and suddenly paused. “Are you a virgin, Winona?”
“Not really—oh!” With a cry, she arched her hips and grasped his buttocks, pulling him into her.
Daniel reacted, burying himself with one fierce, powerful thrust that made her cry out, her fingers digging deep into his flesh. For an instant, he paused, reveling in the clasp of her around him, in the long-awaited joining. Then he began to move, slow and deep, so it didn’t go too fast, so those swells and shivers would last.
He brushed her mouth with his, and moved, watching her face change, feeling their movements pulse in him, then in her. He made himself notice the feel of her thighs sliding on the outside of his hips, her body tense and heated and tight around him, the erotic bump of her breasts against his chest.
Dizziness grew in him as their movements grew more and more fierce, their breath tearing raggedly, their skins colliding, brushing, teasing, and he thought he would go mad with the pleasure. I love you—I love you—I love you, his heart sang. And then she came apart against him, her head thrown back, a low, long cry coming from her throat, and he could no longer control his movements.
He gave in, lost himself in Winona. Burying his face against her throat, his hands on her shoulders to hold her close, so close. Wishing he never had to go from this moment, when he was so whole, to the next, when he would have to let her go.
* * *
As the fervor of their passion eased, as the tangled, frantic sound of their breathing slowed, Winona began to tremble. It started at the base of her spine and radiated outward, claiming her hips and then her shoulders, spreading to her arms and legs. It was a fine, faint trembling, like the trembling she got with a malarial attack, but this was reaction. Reaction to the power of the moment just passed, to the overwhelming, incredible feeling of him inside her, his arms around her, his lips even now brushing her jaw and collarbone and ear, his hair thickly falling around them. She tried to breathe slowly, to let her body relax, but the trembling only increased.
She clutched him closer to her, embarrassed at this strangeness. Surely women didn’t fall apart like this as a usual practice after making love.
But it continued. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I’m shaking like this.”
He eased his body from atop hers and reached for the thick quilt they’d kicked aside in their thrashings, bringing it up over both of them. “It’s okay,” he said, pulling her close, his hands rubbing her arms and legs, his mouth against her hair. “You just got cold.”
Winona closed her eyes and let him rub her, even though she knew it wasn’t cold that made her tremble, that it was a purely metaphorical reaction to him. She was shaken to her soul. Shaken and changed eternally.
And in a few quiet moments, the warmth of him and the blanket eased her.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes.” A shyness invaded her now, and she could think of nothing to say. It seemed one of them should say something. Her heart felt close to exploding with the fullness of their joining. Had it affected him the same way? Or was she only new and green and prone to falling in love?
He said nothing, only held her close, his leg flung over hers, his arms wrapped close around her, her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. His foot moved on her shin, and his fingers lightly traced a hipbone. His lips touched the crown of her head.
And Winona decided that was enough. For once in her life, she would not analyze. She would not ask what the future would bring, or decide—right in this moment—whether she had been wrong to come here.
She would only lie in his strong arms and take what he offered tonight, tuck it away like the treasure it was.
Gingerly, she shifted, thinking the weight of her on his arm would make him uncomfortable.
“Don’t go, Winona. Please.”
He held her as if he were afraid.
“Stay with me tonight.”
He tugged her back into the cradle of his arms. “Sleep with me for a little while before you go.”
“I don’t want your arm to fall asleep,” she said. “That’s all.”
He nodded sleepily, and moved so he could hold her without her lying on him. “There. Now we can sleep.” He kissed her shoulder, covered her breast with his hand. “Stay with me.”
Winona nestled close. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
* * *
She awakened with a guilty start, to the sound of birds singing and a pale wash of sunshine flooding the room. Daniel was still tangled around her, though their positions had changed somewhat. His legs and hers were woven, and his arm was flung over her with a dead weight.
Gently, thinking worriedly of the girls, who had gone to bed at a decent hour last night and might wake up anytime, she eased from his hold. When she was free of his limbs, she turned, looking for a clock. A red digital screen showed 8:33. “Yikes!” Winona said under her breath, and flung back the covers, looking urgently for her clothes.
Everything lay all over the floor, her jeans in a pile with his, her bra twisted inside her shirt. Winona grabbed things as she saw them, embarrassed at her nudity in this bright, flooding light. She moved quietly, hoping he wouldn’t awaken before she could go.
It was a futile hope. “Winona,” he said from the bed. “What are you doing?”
Clutching the woefully inadequate shirt to her, Winona turned. At the sight of him, her heart slammed to a stop, and she forgot that she wasn’t covered, that her body and all its largeness was brazenly naked.
But impossible to think of it when he, too, was uncovered, his hair tousled and streaming over his dark torso. And the look in his eyes was blatantly hungry. He knelt, coming for her, and the quilt fell away from him, and his body, too, was totally revealed in the bright, morning light—fully aroused and perfectly made, his hair his only adornment. He took her arm and plucked the clothes from her.
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