“It’s—”
“Ahem!” Matt’s scowl deepened.
Serena rolled her eyes. “It’s how it’s cooked,” she said. “Special herbs and things. It’s a favorite around here.”
Angela would have asked for details, because the meat was truly delicious, but Serena dashed off into the crowd.
The party grew boisterous when someone began passing around the tiswin. Pace explained that it was homemade brew, and that it tasted terrible. The smell of it was enough to convince Angela not to try it.
Singing, dancing, and laughter whirled all around them for what seemed like hours. Matt and Angela had both eaten their fill, but had yet to speak to each other as husband and wife.
Matt noticed the slump to her shoulders and remembered what she’d been through during the past several days, not to mention putting up a wickiup in record time. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”
The sound of his voice jarred her from her daze and she jumped. “What? Oh, no, I’m fine, really.”
She was nervous. When she looked at him, he thought he detected a note of fear in her eyes. She was probably worried he wouldn’t stick to his part of the bargain and leave her alone. He sighed heavily, thinking of the long, restless night to come; the many long, restless nights to come.
He hadn’t thought, when he’d agreed to this plan, that she’d have such an effect on him. He hadn’t anticipated this uncontrollable rush of blood through his veins every time he looked at her. He’d never been driven wild by the mere sight of a woman before, but he could feel it happening now, and it worried him. He had to keep away from her and leave her alone. He’d promised her an annulment, and a Colton never went back on his word, damn it.
“There you two are,” Chee cried, a wide grin splitting his bronze face. “You’ve got to try this new drink I made.” He held up a pitch–covered jug and two drinking gourds.
“Angela’s tired, Chee. We’re turning in.”
“Just one drink,” Chee insisted. He poured Matt and Angela each a gourdful of his brew, then raised the jug high in the air. “To your marriage, my friends! May it be long and fruitful!”
Matt and Angela refrained from looking at each other, but Matt wondered at Chee’s choice of words.
Angela must have been thirsty, for she finished her drink in a hurry. Matt wasn’t quite finished with his when he suddenly lowered the gourd and sniffed its contents. Something tickled his memory, then he knew.
He grabbed for Angela’s gourd, but it was empty; she’d already drained it. “Damn you, Chee,” he swore.
Chee grinned wickedly. “You might as well finish it all. She did.”
Angela looked from one man to the other in confusion, while Chee laughed and Matt growled and swore. Matt finished off his drink, then threw the gourd at Chee’s head and swore again. Chee ducked out of the way, howling with laughter.
“Guneedligu'águnasi, shik'is!,” Chee called. “Have a good time, my brother!”
Matt scowled, grabbed Angela by the arm, and practically dragged her to their new wickiup. Someone had lit a small fire inside, and shadows danced along the grass walls.
“Matt, what’s wrong? Let go! You’re hurting me!” She winced when he tightened his grip on her arm. Real fear flashed across her face.
Matt swore again, then released her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He began pacing the narrow confines of the wickiup, ducking his head occasionally to accommodate the sloping walls and roof, which allowed only a few steps in any direction for someone of his height.
“What’s happened, Matt?”
He didn’t answer. How could he tell her?
“Is it…are you…is it because you had to marry me?”
He turned to her in surprise. “No, of course not. Look, I’ve got something to tell you, and you’re not going to like it.”
“It was Chee’s drink, wasn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I saw the way you looked at him, but I don’t understand. I thought it was delicious, and it was nice of him to go to all that trouble for us.”
Matt rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his head to ease an ache. “You won’t think so when I tell you what was in it.”
But he wasn’t going to tell her what was in it. He knew that. He had to tell her what would happen, but if she knew she’d just drank the powdered remains of a certain species of European blister beetle—well, he didn’t want to be around for her reaction to that bit of news. Especially if she ever found out that jaandeezi was the Chiricahua word for mule. And that the particular mule she’d just eaten was one of her own.
At the look of fright in her eyes, all he said was, “He’s drugged us.”
His calm, matter–of–fact statement plainly stunned her. “But why would he—? What kind of drug?” She looked up at him with wide eyes the color of summer leaves on the cottonwood outside his bedroom window. “Are we going to die?”
“No! Angela, no, it wasn’t poison. We aren’t going to die, I promise.”
“Then what was it? What will it do to us?”
“What will it do?” he repeated, staring at her from across the tiny fire. “I don’t know quite how to say this, except to tell you that long before tomorrow morning, we won’t have any grounds for an annulment.”
Chapter Ten
It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. When it did, all Angela could do was blink and stare at him as a suffocating heat crept up her neck.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Angela?”
“No!” She lied, and she knew he knew it. “No,” she repeated. “You can’t mean it!”
He did mean it; the look in his eyes told her so. But she refused to acknowledge it. “You’re lying!” she cried. “I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me all night. You’re just trying to trick me. You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you?” Her panic grew with each ragged breath she took. “There wasn’t anything in that drink at all. You just want me to think there was so I’ll go along with you. Well it won’t work, Colton! You just stay away from me, you hear?”
As she backed away, he shook his head slowly, but remained where he was. “I’m not lying, Angela. But you’ll find that out in a few minutes, when the drug starts working on you. In the mean time, I suggest you take off those borrowed clothes before something happens to them.” He stepped around the fire. The flames seemed to leap from the ground and dance in his eyes.
“No,” Angela begged. “Don’t look at me like that.” Was it his eyes that started that tingling sensation down deep inside her?
“Like how? Like you’ve been looking at me all night?”
“No!”
“Oh, yes.” He advanced another step. “You haven’t been able to keep your eyes off me and you know it. Some of the looks you gave me out there were so hot I thought my buckskins were going up in flames.” He took another step.
“You’re crazy!” She backed away, embarrassed, confused. The tingling grew and intensified until it centered in that most secret part of her body. Heat flushed her skin.
“Am I?” He advanced.
“Yes! I never did any such thing.” She raised her chin in the air and took another step back. When she did, she stumbled on the edge of the low, grass bed and waved her arms wildly trying to keep her balance. Her borrowed dress jingled in agitation. When she was just about to go over backwards, Matt grabbed her and pulled her to his chest. The sudden contact startled them both. Her heart fluttered; her skin felt prickly. The tingling in her loins turned to a warm, moist throbbing.
They stared at each other for long moments, their eyes locked, their breaths mingling, their hearts pounding rapidly against each other. Angela looked away first and struggled to free herself from his embrace.
Matt tightened his arms around her and lowered his lips toward hers. She twisted her face away, and he brought a hand up to hold her head still. She could feel his strong fingers against her scalp. His hand was so bi
g it held her head easily. His lips came nearer.
“No,” she whispered.
“Ssh. It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.”
She felt the deep vibration of his voice clear down to her toes. Her eyes locked on his lips and she swallowed. She tried to deny the soft, languid feeling that poured through her like warm honey. One more time she whispered, “No.”
Then his lips met hers, softly at first, and she melted in his arms. At the urging of his tongue, she opened her mouth to him. The warm honey in her blood turned to hot, molten lava as desire erupted within her for the first time.
Matt had never taken the drug before, but he knew people who had, so he knew what to expect. He knew that as soon as it took hold of him he’d become no better than an animal. He didn’t want to do this to Angela. She was too young and innocent to be treated that way. But he also knew that in a matter of minutes it would be too late.
Her arms came around his waist and she sank her fingers into his back like claws. She moaned, deep down in her throat, and Matt knew it was already too late. Her response was driving him crazy. His one comforting thought was that she, too, had taken the drug.
He tore his lips away and looked down into her flushed face. Her eyes were fevered, fueled by the same fire that roared through his veins. “Angela,” he breathed.
She gazed at him with liquid eyes, her breathing ragged. “I feel so strange, Matt. What’s happening to me?”
“It’s all right.” His hands trembled as he released her head and stroked her back beneath the heavy curtain of her hair. She moaned again and leaned into him. This time when he kissed her there was no trace of tenderness, only demand that she yield him everything.
And she did.
His kiss was savage, as savage as she had once thought it would be from a man called Bear Killer. But now there was no room in her mind for thought, except for the thought of more. She wanted more. Even through their clothes she felt the hardness of his desire against her stomach. She ground herself into it, raising on tiptoe, trying to put the pressure where her body told her it belonged.
She had no idea how it happened, nor did she care, but she suddenly found herself standing naked before a naked Matt. All she could think was, Yes…oh yes! Let me touch his skin. So much skin.
Then suddenly they were touching, body to body, mouth to mouth. They gasped together; they groaned together; they trembled together.
All Angela wanted was to be able to crawl inside his skin and become a part of him. But there was an emptiness in her, and she knew that somehow, she wanted him to crawl inside her, too.
Their lips never parted as Matt swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bearskin. When he lowered her to the dark fur, there were no loving looks, no soft sighs or tender touches, as a man and woman might share on their wedding night. There was only fire and need.
Angela’s eyes opened wide in surprise when she felt his hand run down her bare stomach and clutch frantically at the pale yellow curls at the juncture of her thighs. His mouth released hers, then lowered again and took in her gasp as his hand slid lower and firmly cupped her womanhood. Her hips thrust up of their own accord and she pressed herself into his hand.
His fingers caressed her warm, moist depths, and she knew she was dying. But she didn’t care. If this was what it was like to die, she would gladly go.
But first she wanted more.
A growl rumbled in Matt’s throat when he felt how hot and wet and ready she was. He withdrew his hand and she whimpered in protest. He pushed her legs apart and lowered himself between her soft thighs. The last remnants of control fled him when she moved her hips beneath him. With one brutal thrust, he plunged into her, feeling the delicate membrane of her maidenhood tear as he went, knowing he was hurting her, yet powerless to stop.
But the drug had its affect on Angela, too. The sharp, unexpected pain was gone in an instant, and it was nothing compared to the pleasure of having that aching void inside her filled at last. She clung to him desperately, the only solid thing in her spinning world. Her head felt light and her blood pounded in her ears. Her hips thrust up to meet his, jerkily at first, then more smoothly and fiercely as she caught his rhythm and matched it.
Matt was surprised when she started to move against him so soon. He both cursed the drug and praised it, assuming correctly that it had lessened her pain. Then all thought but one fled his brain, that one being that he must find release from this tormenting pleasure.
On and on they thrust. Her legs found their way around his hips and her arms, his chest. Her fingernails sinking into his back only added to his pleasure.
He raised up on his elbows to relieve her of some of his weight and to increase the pressure of his thrusts. He lost himself in her smooth, warm depths time and time again.
Angela protested the loss of his lips with a groan. She raised her head, trying to find some part of him to taste. When her mouth came in contact with his firm, rounded shoulder, she tried to devour it. She licked, she sucked, she even chewed on his flesh. She tasted the saltiness of his sweat, and felt drops of it fall from his face to mingle with her own.
The pressure built, and Angela didn’t know what would happen, she only knew she felt ready to explode. Her breath came in ragged gasps.
Finally, minutes, hours, maybe years later, they both found what they’d been seeking, what Angela hadn’t even known existed. Matt threw back his head and uttered a sharp cry, and Angela sank her teeth into his shoulder as wave after wave of relief slammed into them. The spasms went on for an eternity, and they shuddered together, gasped together, cried out together, as the intensity of their mutual climax held them in its grip.
The first thing Angela became aware of as she slid down from that peak of pleasure was the sound of harsh breathing, his and hers. She opened her eyes slowly and found Matt watching her intently. Neither spoke while they stared into each other’s eyes. Then Matt lowered his lips to hers and kissed her with a fierceness that sent her heart pounding even before it had a chance to calm.
He tore his lips away and burned her with his gaze. “No annulment, Angela,” he said. Then he kissed her once more, smothering any reply she might have made, had she been capable of thought.
Drug or no drug, Matt couldn’t believe Angela’s responsiveness. She was incredible, this stranger who was his wife. Before he could tell her how right this intimacy with her felt, before he could even catch his breath, it began again, that burning, driving need. That was the curse of the drug: it prolonged the pleasure, postponed relief, then, when release came, it hissed and flamed again, like a fire newly fed, building the hunger rapidly, denying the rest so sorely needed, denying any time to enjoy the release.
Matt had tasted of her mouth, but now he needed to taste her flesh. His lips and tongue traced a hot moist path down her throat to her breasts. When his tongue lapped at a dusky peak, the nipple was already hard. Angela writhed beneath him and cried out her pleasure. His lips closed over the taut bud, and he suckled gently at first, then harder as he felt her response.
Angela had no need to wait for that piercing instant of pleasure when he entered her, for he’d never left. He was still buried deep within her, and her legs were still wrapped around his waist. Muscles she’d never used before tightened around him.
His mouth trailed fire in a path from one nipple to the other. He nipped at it, teasing it with his teeth, then he groaned out loud as she moved her hips in a circular motion beneath him.
Matt wanted to laugh hysterically with his pleasure. Angela wanted to cry from hers. But there was no room for his laughter or her tears when he began to move inside her, and she moved with him. The sweat hadn’t yet dried on their bodies, and now it was pouring again.
The last tiny flame of the fire beneath the smoke hole died out, leaving nothing but a few embers in the darkness. But the fire on the bearskin rug flamed on. All night it blazed, being fed anew each time it flickered out. The man and woman it burned could do nothing to
thwart it. No matter how exhausted they were, or how their muscles protested, they joined again and again, each time finding release, only to be tormented by the flames of desire before they could fully savor it.
There was no time for Angela to learn the finer points of making love. There was only the frenzied, clawing search for ease, followed again and again by the building pressure, then brief, so brief, respite.
As the sky above the smoke hole turned from black to gray, Matt knew his final release had come. The drug had let him go. He collapsed beside Angela and pulled her into his arms, then fell asleep.
When he woke, the gray was turning pink, so he knew he hadn’t slept long. His mind groped for a reason for his waking, and found it instantly. Angela’s grip on his shoulders was bruising in its strength. Her face was pressed against his chest, and she squirmed against him as she straddled his thigh.
“Angel?”
She whimpered and pressed her face harder against him.
“Angel, look at me.” When she didn’t respond, he placed a hand on her chin and forced her face up. It was barely light, but he could see the fiery blush, the gathered tears, the exhaustion, the mingled look of frustration and embarrassment. The drug hadn’t worn off for her yet.
She twisted her head away and sobbed, “Don’t look at me!”
“Angela, it’s all right.” He held her tightly when she tried to push away. “Ssh. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, Angel, don’t cry.” He raised his thigh between her legs, increasing the pressure where she craved it.
“Yes!” she cried. “Oh, yes!” She rocked herself against him, harder and harder, until she cried out her climax and collapsed on top of him.
But before she could even catch her breath, it came at her again, that driving need. Matt saw it in her eyes. He wanted to be able to give her what she needed, but his body was spent beyond belief. His manhood lay limp and unresponsive to his will and her need.
He rolled her onto her back, and she clung to him, taking him with her. He slid his hand down between her thighs. When his fingers slipped inside, she winced.
Apache-Colton Series Page 49