by Vonna Harper
“Can you feel my pulse?” she asked. “I’m alive. Real. So are you. You—when we were in my studio, you said I belonged to you.”
“One of his wives was the descendant of a slave,” Laird whispered. He gave no indication he’d heard her. “They had a daughter. One day Chechoter was captured by slave catchers and sold into slavery.”
“Hush, hush,” she muttered, although what Laird had just said sickened her. How horrible. “You can’t return her to her parents.”
“I feel Osceola’s tears. A father’s tears.”
“So do I,” she admitted. She drew his hands over her unrestrained breasts. “Laird, Osceola had—has women in his life. You deserve the same. Me. Make me yours tonight. Brand me.”
Perhaps that made an impact on him, and maybe he was simply responding to her invitation to explore her. At any rate, he knelt, took hold of the hem of her shift and unceremoniously drew it over her head, leaving her naked except for the thin nylon panties. She shivered as a breeze from the fan teased her breasts and puckered her nipples. Although there was little chance anyone could see them, she felt a little uneasy being stripped while out in the open. Uneasy and intrigued by the possibilities.
Before she could suggest going inside, Laird turned her so her back was to him. His warm breath on her nape made her shudder. Ignoring her reaction, he ran his fingers under her panties. Although they already left her navel exposed, maybe he thought they were too modest because he deftly rolled them down to the apex of her legs.
“You…” She tried again. “You aren’t much into foreplay tonight, are you?”
“You do not want this?” He cupped his hand over her crotch and pulled her roughly against him. His swollen cock pressed into her buttocks.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, I do, damn it.”
If anything, the pressure over her cunt increased until it became almost painful. Needing distraction, she planted her hands over his imprisoning wrist and pulled. Instead of releasing her, however, he pushed up with his fingers, probing at her labia. Her cunt loosened, softened, readied itself for him.
“Stop it! You’re hurting me.”
“Is that it?” He relaxed his grip a little. “Or are you afraid to give yourself totally to me? Become mine?”
Even as she lost herself in the heated sensation of having her cunt trapped by him, she continued to pull on his wrist. “Too much,” she sobbed. “I can’t keep on top of what you’re doing.”
“I will remember that,” he said, and released her. The sudden loss of pressure forced her to cry out and sag forward. She broke into a sweat, and a climax hummed just beyond her reach. She would have told him that and begged him to help her into and through it, but she was afraid. Afraid of her own body.
Just the same, she hoped he’d complete the stripping he’d begun a few seconds ago. Instead, he closed his right arm over her breasts and once again pulled her hard against him. Once he had her imprisoned, he slid his left hand under the nylon and over her crotch. As before, her response was instant. No way wouldn’t he notice her flooded cunt.
Chuckling—or maybe growling—he worked his middle finger between her throbbing lips and deep inside. She couldn’t tell whether he was being less possessive this time, thus keeping her from feeling trapped, or she’d simply become accustomed to his brand of foreplay. Lightheaded, she attempted to steady herself by reaching behind her and grasping his thighs. It helped. It also left her even more exposed to his exploration.
At his silent prompting, she widened her stance. Beyond caring about anything except the intimate search, she threw back her head so it rested against his collarbone and shut her eyes.
His woman, his possession.
His finger—his magical finger—curled so it now rubbed the so-sensitive front of her passage. He reached and stroked, danced right and stroked some more, tiptoed left to repeat the exquisite torture. Her consciousness narrowed until nothing of her existed beyond the charged channel.
She could barely breathe, would have fallen if he hadn’t clamped her against him. She wished to hell he was as naked as she.
Didn’t matter.
Already on fire, she felt the inner flame grow even hotter. Something shifted inside her, and it took a moment to realize he’d straightened his finger and was pushing it even further inside her. His finger wasn’t large enough to completely fill her pussy. Otherwise, maybe she would have already come.
Already?
Damn, what had happened to her? A simple finger job and—
Oh God! His nail teasing her super-charged clit, igniting swollen flesh, bringing her—bringing her—
Climax was a breath away. One more grazing motion and—
No!
“What—what are you doing?” she sobbed. Frustration made her crazy. He’d withdrawn his finger, leaving her on the brink.
“A lesson, Mala,” he said in an impersonal tone. “You took advantage of me earlier today, pulled me away from my people when I was too weak to know what you were doing.”
Hating him, she pulled out of his grasp and whirled on him. Another push of wind slid over her naked flesh, and her clit continued to boil.
“So you decided to torture me?” she demanded. She couldn’t stop trembling.
“Call it what you want.”
“I don’t give a damn about word games!” On the brink of telling him to get the hell out of her life, she glanced down. He had an erection. “Foreplay,” she said. “And now that you’ve had your turn, it’s mine.”
“Is this a fight?”
“I don’t know what it is. Damn it, Laird. You’ve turned my life upside down and inside out. You care about me. I know you do! At least you do when they let you. We’re going somewhere neither of us has ever gone before. If you think I was taking advantage of you—I wasn’t. I wasn’t!”
“Then what was it?”
If she had the rest of her life, she wasn’t sure she could answer him. All she knew for sure was that he’d deftly brought her to the brink of ecstasy only to rob her. Now, somehow, she’d make it her turn. Let him know what it felt like to be trapped and a prisoner of sexual need. Fight for the human being she knew he could be.
Putting thought into action, she strode toward him, unzipped his shorts and yanked them off. When she reached for his briefs, he captured her wrist. “Are you afraid?” she taunted. “No turnabout?”
“I may be afraid of certain things, but not of you.”
“I’d never do anything to hurt you, Laird,” she told him. “I’d like to believe the same of you, but you might not be able to help it.”
“You think that?”
“You’re on a journey—a journey with an end neither of us can anticipate. If I get in the way…”
“What if you get in the way?” he prompted.
“I don’t want to go into that now. And I don’t believe you do, either.”
By way of answer, he lifted her captured hand, brought it to his mouth and kissed it. She nearly melted at the gesture and might have told him how much it meant to her if she’d been able to ignore the moist heat between her legs or the sense that he wasn’t in complete control of himself.
After standing on tiptoe and kissing him full but briefly on the lips, she again turned her attention to his briefs. This time he let her finish disrobing him. She heard a radio playing in the distance and guessed they weren’t the only ones in the neighborhood to take advantage of a summer evening.
Let them have their late barbeques, their lawn games. She had something much more important to accomplish.
When she turned him so his back was to the mattress, the dim porch light placed him in silhouette. No longer being able to clearly see him gave her the uneasy feeling that he might disappear. She had to take advantage of whatever time they had together.
Sexual frustration still made it impossible for her to completely disregard her body, but she concentrated on him to the best of her ability. She’d called his titillation of her foreplay. Well,
that worked both ways.
Dispensing with preliminaries, she slid both hands under his cock. With her right, she cradled the turgid length. She cupped the other around his balls and pressed them together, rocking them back and forth against each other at the same time. He reached for her.
“No,” she warned, although she ached with the need to feel his hands swarming over her. “I didn’t stop you when you rammed your finger inside me. When you brought me to the brink only to rob me. I deserve the same.”
The same and yet different, she amended because her full intention was to force a climax out of him, not that she thought he’d object. She stroked and kneaded, then crouched down and sucked the tip of his cock into her mouth. The moment she did, he thrust his pelvis at her. Although she hated to, she turned her head to the side, releasing him. He tried to lean away from her, but she still had hold of his balls.
Quick and sure, she again captured his cock. She slid her palm up and down its length, fantasizing about feeding it into her cunt. Instead, she let go of his balls and took the hard, dripping spear in both hands. She pressed and twisted, duplicating as best she could having him inside her.
Faster and faster she stroked. As she did, she squeezed and released her buttocks, squeezed again, further stimulating herself. He thrust and retreated, thrust and retreated, harder and harder.
Wild to bring him to climax, she exerted what she hoped was just the right amount of resistance. She’d nearly let him pull his cock free only to reestablish control by sliding her hand down to its base and squeezing down first with thumb and forefinger and then the rest of her fingers. Pinpricks of sensation hummed along her fingers, spread to her palms, over her wrists. Her nipples had become so swollen that they pulled her entire breasts upward. Juices had already leaked from her core and now ran down the insides of her thighs, the smell blended with their sweat, further filling the space with the heat of sex.
“Come,” she muttered. “Come. Let go.”
He did, his come spilling out of him and over her fingers.
She sobbed, bucked away from him and jammed her wet fingers deep inside her. Unmindful of her strong nails, she prodded and tickled, pressed, released, then pressed again. Her head felt as if it might explode. She took noisy, ragged breaths full of his scent.
Suddenly, he shoved her onto her back. Spreading her legs and pulling her fingers out of her at the same time, he then bent her knees and slipped a pillow under her hips. Through a watery film, she saw him lower his head toward her exposed and waiting cunt.
“Yes!” she gasped. “Please, yes!”
He briefly licked at the juice clinging to her inner thighs, but she was too far gone, too close to the brink for that.
“Now! Please! Damn it, please!”
Oh my! Oh my God! His tongue kissing her clit! Now his teeth rubbing the swollen and sensitive flesh, making her sob. Heat consumed her.
She’d already started to come when his tongue probed between her nether lips, pushed her clit deep inside, held it there.
She exploded.
Came again as he buried his warrior’s tongue deep inside her core. I belong to you! Don’t—don’t forget that. Please.
As consciousness faded, she reached up and pressed her hand over his throat. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard him sigh. Felt tension seep out of him.
Chapter Twelve
Mala lay on her side under Laird’s outstretched arm and leg. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately after they’d collapsed onto the mattress. At first she wasn’t sure what had awakened her, then thought it might have turned too cool for them to comfortably sleep naked. Taking inventory of her skin, she found no cool spots. Neither was she in any discomfort from the weight of his limbs. Despite the darkness enveloping her, her thoughts settled on his earlier sigh. The soft and vulnerable sound had been a gift.
She was nearly back asleep when she again jerked awake. This time there was no doubt of the cause. Laird was talking in his sleep. Only, she didn’t understand a word he was saying. He’d done that before, and she’d been able to get him to speak in English again. How had she accomplished that?
Smiling faintly, she pushed out her butt, making contact. She discovered he had an erection and turned so she now faced him. She lifted her knee and then lowered it, thinking to rub it over his penis. Before she could complete the act, his body tensed.
“Laird, it’s all right,” she soothed. “You just had a dream.”
Suddenly, he sprang to his feet, and she hurried to do the same. He’d turned off the porch light when they went to bed and now stood in the dark, invisible except for the faintest shape and tension that boiled from him.
“What is it?” she asked. Why she was backing away instead of trying to embrace him, she couldn’t say.
More words erupted from him. She hugged herself. He stalked from one end of the porch to another, then slammed his fist against the screening.
“Don’t!” she warned. “You’ll break—”
Whirling, he came at her. She tried to duck under his outstretched arms, but he caught her upper arms and violently shook her. Mindful of the neighbors, she forced herself not to cry out. Instead, she pummeled his chest. He clamped down, and her arms instantly turned numb.
“Don’t. Please, you’re hurting me.”
He didn’t hear. Either that or he didn’t care. He continued to shake her.
“What—what have I—ow!” She gasped. She’d bitten her tongue.
More foreign words spewed from him. He stopped shaking her and was trying to pull her against him. Leery of what he might do, she tried to knee him in the balls. Unfortunately, her aim was off, causing her knee to glance off his thigh. Before she could try again, he lifted her half off her feet and threw her to the mattress.
Instead of coming after her, he charged the netting, ripped it apart, and jumped to the ground. She heard him run off.
Late afternoon found Mala in her shop. Although half sick from exhaustion, she’d known better than try to sleep. And now that she’d unsuccessfully tried to contact Laird’s brother, driven over to the marina only to find his business and houseboat locked up, and conducted some research at the library, she was doing the one thing that might put her mind at peace.
After taking a sip of iced tea—the only thing she’d been able to put in her stomach—she focused on what she’d created. The bracelet was essentially the same as the drawing she’d shown Laird except she’d wound up using even smaller shells. She still had to fasten a clasp to it before it would stay on, but when she draped it over her wrist, she felt satisfied—or at least as satisfied as someone whose life was in turmoil could.
She’d left a message asking Clint to please get in touch if he heard from his “brother” and hadn’t really expected to find Laird either at home or work. What truly upset her was what she’d learned from her research. Following Osceola’s death, the Seminole had continued to hold out against the whites, but within three years, most had surrendered and been relocated west of the Mississippi.
A few holdouts had fled deep into the Everglades, apparently to live out their lives in the swamps. Nothing was known about their lives as fugitives, but some of their great-great-grandchildren continued to live much as the ancient Seminole had. Had they survived, endured, thrived, because they’d followed a brave and competent leader?
The bracelet started to slide off her wrist, and she held it in place. Despite her reliance on natural materials, she’d always taken pride in clean, smooth, lines—what one critic had called a refined polish. This piece looked as if it had been fashioned by someone unschooled in the craft. It was primitive and crude—like the necklace that had served as her inspiration.
She closed her eyes, but didn’t try to hold back her tears. Wherever Laird was, she had no doubt he wore the necklace Osceola had given him.
Maybe all she’d ever have of her lover was this bracelet. That and memories of the most intense and unforgettable sex of her life.
Seated deep inside him was knowledge of the men, women and children who made up his family. Their words of encouragement and confidence rang inside him and created their own rhythm.
And yet there was something else—a touch that didn’t come from his people. A woman’s slender but strong arms, her body blending with his. Again and again as he walked, she came to him, tried to take over his thoughts and body, fought to make him forget that the lives of the Seminole depended on his knowledge of the enemy.
Why would she try to come between him and his task? His destiny?
Why was her hold on him so strong?
Something—it might have been the woman’s fingers—brushed his breast. He lifted his hand, intending to push her away. Instead, his gaze settled on the ring on his smallest finger. Stopping, he turned his hand one way and then another until a shaft of light from the dying sun struck it. He didn’t recognize the material it was made from, and yet his head echoed with her explanation of how she’d woven silver strands together to duplicate a child’s braid.
And he’d placed her creation on his finger.
A tentacle of fear raced through him, but when he grabbed the ring, he couldn’t make himself tear it off and throw it away.
She had hold of him.
Had captured him.
No!
“Yes.”
Heart pounding, determined to learn where her voice had come from, he stared at his surroundings. He didn’t want to admit that she’d left her word inside him, maybe was speaking to him from a great distance, but perhaps he had no choice.