by Karen Kay
“Humph!” White Eagle grunted. “While I can understand that this is not an unreasonable decision for a woman to make—she must ever consider the welfare of herself and her children—to marry for love and a higher position, that would be the best thing of all.”
“Then,” she addressed him quietly, “you don’t think that I am necessarily doing anything wrong by marrying for position?”
“Saa, no,” he said. “You made the best decision that you could make.”
“Thank you.”
“At that time…”
“At that time?”
He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. “You could do better now.”
Warily she asked, “And how, might you say, could I do better?”
“By finding someone who could not only give you a better life, but who would care for you as well.” He shrugged, the gesture demonstrating more effectively than words, his impatience. “Better it is that you should choose someone else, someone who will be honest with you, someone you can trust.”
“I see,” she said. “And do you know of such a person?”
He didn’t answer her question with words; he didn’t have to. His demeanor said it all. As his lips parted, she knew just whom he meant. She also understood just what she wanted from this man…
Her body reacted to her thoughts with a heated rush, and she feared she could not sit quietly in front of this man, gazing at him, admiring him, without moving closer toward him. She wanted him to kiss her…badly.
She wanted that kiss with a desire she could little understand, but she couldn’t tell him. She didn’t dare. And so she just watched him, wishing.
The moonlight didn’t help. In the misty beams she watched White Eagle part his lips in a purely passionate gesture. She tried to will him toward her.
But nothing happened. Nothing at all.
At last she spoke. “Mister Eagle?”
He raised his eyebrows, though his look at her remained intent, full of earthy promise.
“Mr. Eagle, might I ask you if you would…”
Again, he gave her that inquisitive look.
She tried again, “I…I would like it very much if you would…” She couldn’t finish it. She had almost done it, almost brought herself to ask him for that kiss. Truly, she felt almost faint with her physical need for it. And yet, she couldn’t directly ask him to kiss her, so improper was it. And so she finished, saying merely, “I think I should go back to my room now. We will most likely need to get an early start tomorrow, and I should at least try to get some sleep.”
“Humph!” He made to rise to his feet, or so she thought, but he came only halfway up, getting onto his knees, where he knelt in front of her.
His face was only a few, short inches from her own. And as he gazed at her, simply gazed at her, his look more openly sexual than it might have been had he sat before her naked, she felt herself physically weaken.
“Little Moonlight,” he muttered, his breath fanning her lips, her cheek, as he spoke, “I think I would like another kiss.”
Her stomach dropped. Thank heavens he had said it, but she couldn’t answer him back. Good manners prevented her from doing that, and so she did the only thing she could in the circumstances:
She closed her eyes and leaned in toward him as she whispered, “Please…Mr. Eagle.”
She had meant to make the words sound as though they were a fainthearted protest, as would have been expected of her had she been entertaining him in a proper drawing room, but her words, her meaning, didn’t materialize that way. Even to her own ears, she sounded just as she felt…as though she pleaded.
It was all the encouragement he needed.
He moaned and, taking her in his arms, his lips sought out hers like a hunting arrow to its prey, one kiss after another.
Her whole body reacted to him, and she felt as though she were melting.
“Little Moonlight, do you know how I want you?” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips. He kissed her once more, glancing briefly at her between kisses. “Do you even know what that means?”
She didn’t, but she didn’t want to admit it. And so she simply gazed at him, as he held her in his arms, staring into his face, only scant inches away from her own. Oh, the sensations she felt.
“I want to do all those things with you that are natural to a man and a woman.”
She didn’t react to his words, she just looked at him as she snuggled in even closer to him.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered, his breath husky. “I want to…mate with you. But if I do this, it will mean that you will belong to me…not to this Englishman. Now, do you understand? If I go any further, you will be mine.”
Staring at this man, this Indian, who knelt before her, she was unable to voice a single word. She should have been shocked at what he’d told her. She knew it, but she wasn’t.
In truth, what he’d said, the way in which he’d said it, enchanted her, stimulated her.
After some moments, he said, “Do you wish this too?”
“I…Mr. Eagle,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I want. All I know is that I would very much like it if you would…kiss me again.”
Everything about him stilled, and his expression grew more serious, until he did nothing more than stare at her.
As she gazed back at him, more sensation, more communication passed between them than if they had spoken their requests aloud. And she hardly knew what she was saying when she repeated, “Please.”
His hands came up to run over her cheeks, then her neck, down over her arms, and she leaned in toward him still farther, closing her eyes as she did so. She could feel the admiration of his gaze upon her, and she responded with some great feeling of her own, her whole system caught up in a torrent of sensation, fire and warmth.
She heard him groan before he said, “Do you know what you are asking of me?”
She opened her eyes and stared at him.
Did she?
She wasn’t certain. The only thing she understood at the moment was this incredible need building up within her.
Both of his hands came up, then, to brush over her cheeks, and she almost collapsed within his caress, so weak did he make her feel. And she murmured, “Mr. Eagle,” as she sagged in toward him.
“Do you experience it too?” he asked, pulling her in even closer toward him. “Can you detect how you tremble as you come further toward me?” He caught her hand and brought it up to his chest, holding it there. “I, too, feel this.”
Her glance came up to meet with his, staring at his handsome face so close to her own. And the thought crossed her mind that she had never felt as complete as she did at this moment; nor had she ever witnessed anything or anyone so beautiful.
She closed her eyes. The texture of his shirt beneath her fingertips felt soft, yet at the same time she could discern all the hard muscles of his chest beneath her touch; the whole effect of what she did, the feel of him, acted as a powerful aphrodisiac.
And true, she could feel the shuddering of his body.
In a voice much huskier than she would have ever thought possible, she asked, “Do you then have…feelings for me?”
He smiled. She could sense the movement of his lips.
“Do you need to ask?”
Her answer was nothing more than a quick blink of pure bafflement.
And he murmured, “Aa, yes, Little Moonlight, I feel…something deep for you. Perhaps I feel too much.”
“Do you? Even though I…” her lips trembled as she spoke, “…I have not been very kind to you.”
“When have you not been kind to me? I do not remember this. You must tell me.”
“I…I… When we first met, I was—”
“Spirited? Full of life and vigor? Ready to make your presence known to me?”
“I… You make it sound so nice, when I remember very distinctly calling you ‘Indian’ in an uncomplimentary way, plus I tried to make you subservient to me.”
“As do many white people. My people realize this and try to make allowances for the white man’s inability to see.”
“Yes, well, I…” she stumbled, “…had no reason to treat you as I did, except that…I… Yet you have been here for me when I needed you, despite how I treated you. You were rude to me, sometimes, but you were also…here.”
“It is true,” he said, and then he muttered under his breath, so low that she could barely hear it, “as I will always be.”
All at once an unusual thought occurred to her, and she said, “I feel as if I have known you before.”
He hesitated a moment before he nodded his head. “Aa, yes, it is so.”
“Were we once…friends?”
“Aa, yes,” he said, “we were friends.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t really remember it. I have only a sensation.”
“I understand,” he said.
He had reached out toward her and was even now massaging her neck, her shoulders, and Katrina found herself leaning in toward the touch of his hands.
And he uttered, “You are more beautiful now, though, than I had remembered.”
“Do you think so?”
“Though you were only five winters old when I knew you before, and so perhaps this is not so surprising.”
She felt his lips turn up in a smile, so close was he to her. Then he brought her more fully into his arms and hugged her.
Something about this moment, the way he held her, the care he showed for her, stirred a memory.
She asked him, “Were we once very close?”
“Aa, yes,” he said, “as close as a young lad of eight winters can be to a child of five.”
“Tell me,” she said, “there is something more. There is something you are hiding from me, isn’t there? I can sense it. What is it?”
He pulled her, if possible, even more closely, into his embrace. “It is nothing for you to worry about.”
“But I want to know.”
He nuzzled her cheek with his own by way of answer.
“Please,” she whispered to him, “won’t you tell me.”
He sighed. And in due time, he said, “Are you certain you want to know about your past? You have made a life for yourself that is as free of the Indian way of living as it can be. Before I speak to you about this, be certain you truly desire to know.”
“Which means it concerns…you and me…”
She felt the tremor run through his body. “It does, doesn’t it?”
Again, he sighed deeply before whispering the words into her ear, “Aa, yes, it is about you and me.”
“Please, Mr. Eagle, please.”
He drew back from her, to gaze into her eyes. “I must tell you that what I have to say might change something within you. Are you truthfully certain you desire to know about your past?”
“Yes, I am, and I have already changed. Can’t you see it? Besides, isn’t it better that I know? What if the information you have is important, and yet I cannot remember it? Better you relay it to me now so I can make more intelligent decisions.”
He backed a small distance away from her then and stared at her for some moments before he, at length, nodded. “You speak wisely, and perhaps I should have told you this as soon as I had remembered it—”
“Then you hadn’t always known this, either?”
“Saa, no,” he said, “only recently have you sparked to life this knowledge within me.”
She paused, looking at him and thinking again how handsome he was, with all his feathers and beads, here within the hazy light of the moon. She said, “Then tell me.”
He nodded, then told her. “We made a vow to each other.”
She bent her head in acknowledgment. “A vow?”
“It happened after the death of your parents.”
“You were there?”
“Aa, yes.”
She gasped, and he went on to say, “I was not able to save your parents. I tried, but they were gone before I could get to them.”
“Was I there too?”
“Aa, yes, you were.”
“I don’t remember it. Could I not save them, either?”
“They were gone almost as quickly as a star blinks in an evening sky, and you were too young to have done anything to save them.”
She bowed her head, but oddly, no tears came. She glanced back at him. “If I was with my parent when the flood came, why did I not perish too?”
“Because I was there.”
“Because you were… What do you mean? Did you…?”
“You were the only one I was able to save. I grabbed you and climbed to the top of a tree, where I was able to bend it, and climb up farther onto a ledge. And there we awaited the fall of the floodwaters.”
She looked away from him.
To say that she was shocked would have been a gross understatement. Firstly, to have found out that she, too, had been caught up in the flood that had taken her parents’ lives was a blow. But then to have discovered the man to whom she had so far shown nothing but disdain was the same man who had once saved her life… It was a bit more than she could easily assimilate.
And she wondered: What did one say to such a person? How did one act?
After some moments, however, she was, at last, able to voice, “Then you have come to my defense even before what you did for me today?”
“Aa,” he said, “yes.”
She just looked at him, an unexpected warmth flooding her system. “You say that we made a vow together?”
“Aa, yes, we did.”
“And will you tell me now what it was?”
He hesitated.
And she stated matter-of-factly, a thought coming to her as easily as if she had known it all her life, “We made a vow to be together, didn’t we?”
She wasn’t sure how she had become aware of this sudden knowledge, but know it, she did, and she really didn’t need his, “Aa, yes, it is so,” to confirm her realization.
At length, she spoke again, saying, “Shouldn’t you have told me this as soon as you found me and discovered that I was engaged?”
“From that time forward, after the flood, we have traveled down different paths, and when we first met again, we barely knew one another. How would I have said this to you? Besides, it was not until recently that I remembered it.”
All at once, an unpleasant thought crept into her mind, and she almost held her breath as she asked, “Have you ever married, then? I have heard that Indians are allowed more than one wife.”
Again, he hesitated before he spoke. “While it is true that Indians are allowed more than one wife, there is only one sits-beside-him-woman, usually a man’s first and favorite wife. How could I marry another when you were to become that woman?”
She let out her breath. “You have not married, then?”
“Saa, no,” he answered, “and it has recently occurred to me that it is perhaps our early vow to one another that has been the reason I have not been interested in the married life…that is, until now.”
That statement had her glancing up at him, critically. “Until now? Then you…?”
“I gave you my vow.”
“But I am betrothed to another.”
“And as yet unmarried.”
“But I wouldn’t want you to try to marry me only because we once vowed it to one another,” she said. “We were too young to know any better, and besides, I would want you to marry me because…” She stopped. What, for goodness’ sake, was she about to say? That she wanted this man to marry her because of…what…? Because he felt something for her? Did she want him to love her? She, who did not believe in the emotion.
He prompted her, “Because…?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, “never mind.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I already feel something for you.”
What? Did the man read thoughts?
She chanced a quick glance at him. “You do?”
He smiled
, the gesture a heartwarming, half grin. He said, “I do.”
She surveyed him there as he knelt before her, the moonlight playing over his foreign, if all-too-handsome features. She inhaled the musky scent of his skin, the mint flavor of his breath reminding her of the first time she had spoken with him. Suddenly the distance that separated them seemed much too large, and she cried, “Oh, White Eagle,” throwing herself into his arms.
“Shhhh.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I spoke your name again. I keep forgetting.”
He nuzzled his face into her hair. “It is all right, I give you permission to use it now.”
“You do? And does that make a difference?”
“Aa, yes, it is so. My people believe that to speak one’s name takes away a part of that person’s spirit. Because of this, only a few are ever given permission to utter another’s name aloud, although even then, few exercise that privilege.” He ran his hands up and down her spine, the action sending shivers racing through her body.
“But you give me permission to use it now?”
“Aa.”
“Thank you,” she said, the heat of a flush filling her face. Another thought occurred to her. “Did we promise one another anything else?”
Again an impish grin graced his face, the same expression that was becoming a much familiar sight, and he said, “Only this,” and his lips brushed over hers in a light caress.
Her stomach dropped in response, turning as though she had suddenly taken ill, and it was as much as she could do at the moment to simply utter, “I hardly think that at our young age, we would have—”
“You are right, we probably would have promised each other this,” he said, a mere moment before his head came down over hers, and he kissed her fully, with a sense of urgency, his hands sweeping up into her hair, pushing back the strands of her locks; then, gently he caressed her cheeks and her neck, while the magic of his kiss never abated.
Desire raced through her more powerful than any emotion she had ever experienced, and it was all she could do to sit up straight. In truth, had he not held her, she might have collapsed.
And she kissed him back, passion reaching out to take hold of her; after only a few moments, she had forgotten all else but him, the feel of his lips on hers, the urgency of wanting…more.