Angela gasped. She flung her arms across her breasts and spun around on her knees, presenting her back to him. She fumbled with her chemise and tried to pull it up to cover her nakedness. She was about to succeed when Matt knelt behind her and gently pushed the garment back down.
He stroked a feathery touch across her shoulders, grasped her hands, then enfolded her in his arms, with her back pressed to his chest. Angela shivered. It felt so right, being in his arms this way, but she was frightened by the intensity of her feelings. This was no way to conduct a mock marriage.
For the longest time, all he did was hold her. Then he slowly forced her to turn around, and his knees straddled hers. He held her gaze steadily, refusing to let his eyes drift lower, and spoke softly.
“I’ve waited since I was ten years old to see peace between Apaches and whites. I always thought when it happened, my life would be complete. But it’s not. Cochise has his peace, and I have my home and my family. But I need one thing more for my life to be complete. I need you, Angela.”
Angela’s eyes widened. She swallowed heavily when he trailed a finger down between her breasts without taking his eyes from hers.
“I want you, Angel. I want you so much. I want you beside me by day, and beneath me by night.”
His deep voice and the picture painted by his words started a trembling sensation deep in the pit of her stomach.
“But this time,” he said, “I want it to be just you…and me. No drug. This time when your eyes turn dark with passion and you cry out your release, I want to know that I’m the reason for it, not something you drank.” He lowered his lips to hers and whispered, “Love me, Angel, love me.”
Their bodies didn’t touch, only their lips and his hands on her shoulders. Angela was lost to the torrent of emotions he stirred in her. When he pulled back, she felt the heat of his gaze travel over her naked breasts.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely.
His fingers traced downward and circled the pale globes until Angela thought she might die from the pleasure of his touch. She gasped and arched when he ran the backs of his fingers over her nipples. They puckered and hardened, and her eyelids grew heavy. A fierce but tender heat rushed through her.
“You want me,” Matt said with wonder. “I can see it in your eyes.”
He kissed her then, pulling her flush against his chest. The contact of skin against skin was like a bolt of lightning. The kiss was desperate, hungry, searching. They clung to each other in mutual need. Angela shuddered at the intensity of her feelings. This was what she’d been wanting for so long.
Matt tore his mouth free and pressed his forehead against hers. His breathing matched hers for raggedness. She moved against him, trying to get closer.
“Easy, Angel,” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t rush it. We have a whole night…a whole lifetime.” He pulled back to look at her and ran a thumb across her swollen lips. “That’s what I want from you, Angel. A whole lifetime of loving.”
Angela couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All she could do was feel. She felt the crisp hair on his chest teasing her breasts, felt his calloused thumb brushing her lips, felt the magnetic pull of his eyes and his words. Amazed at her own actions, she pulled his head down and pressed her lips to his while her fingers traced the scars on his back.
His mouth remained motionless beneath her kiss. Matt wasn’t sure what he had expected from her, but an argument, or at the very least, shyness, would not have surprised him. He’d been prepared to overcome her resistance or reluctance. He’d not been prepared for this teasing encouragement of her lips against his, her soft, slender fingers on his back. Every muscle in his body jerked when she ran her tongue along his upper lip. His mouth opened slightly at her urging, and she sucked gently on his full lower lip. His control snapped.
Angela thrilled to the knowledge that she had the power to make his heart pound as hard and fast as her own. Her world began to sway and spin under the onslaught of his ardor, and when she finally opened her eyes again, she and Matt were both lying on the bearskin, their clothes strewn across the wickiup. The heat from the golden flames in his dark brown eyes took her breath away. She wanted him. Lord, how she wanted him.
“Matt—”
“Ssh. Don’t say anything,” he said between kisses. “Don’t talk, just love me, Angel.” He continued raining kisses across her face and down her throat. Against her ear he whispered, “I’m going to make you love me.”
You don’t have to. I already do.
But his lips on hers kept the words from leaving her mouth. And then, as his mouth trailed down her neck to her breast, she lost all ability to speak, or even think. She became a mindless mass of sensation, and a deep, guttural groan was all she was capable of when his tongue flicked across a hard, erect nipple. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and arched against him, feeling her breast throb and swell as he began to suckle.
Another throbbing and swelling began, this time at the juncture of her thighs. As Matt kissed his way from one nipple to the other, his hand slid down her stomach and came to rest on the triangle of golden curls, his fingers teasing lightly between her legs. Angela writhed beneath his touch, arching, trying to press herself against his fingers, but he slid his hand up to rest at the curve of her waist.
Angela was beside herself. She cried out in protest of his denial.
“Look at me, Angel.”
Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes. His face loomed above her, golden bronze in the firelight. His lips were full and firm with passion. His nostrils flared. His eyes, black with desire, met hers and held them captive. Angela knew without a doubt that he was feeling the same exquisite sensations she was near drowning in.
Matt met her gaze steadily, staring deep into her eyes. He slid his hand down her stomach again and watched in triumph as, with each inch he lowered his hand, her eyes grew darker. They were nearly black by the time he slipped a finger into her warm, moist folds.
Angela gasped. Her eyes fluttered shut. She couldn’t have opened them again if her life depended on it, the pleasure of his touch was so intense.
But Matt didn’t mind that she’d closed her eyes. He’d seen what he wanted to see. He’d seen how his touch affected her. Emotions stampeded through him. This was his woman. She was given to him; she belonged to him. This was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, if only he could convince her to stay with him.
He meant to take his time loving her, but was thwarted by his own thoughts. The very idea that she might leave him made him desperate to hold on to her. Frantic now, he positioned himself between her thighs and joined his flesh to hers. Then there was no holding back, for either of them.
Angela welcomed his aggressiveness and met him thrust for thrust as they each sought release from the blinding, building passion. Only she didn’t want it to end, not yet. It was too exquisite to end so soon.
At that moment, they were so in tune with each other that Matt knew what she wanted. It was what he wanted too, and he pushed his fear of losing her aside and slowed his pace in order to extend their pleasure to the limits. But he couldn’t hold back for long, and his words, whispered harshly in her ear, spurred her to new heights.
“Don’t hold back, just let go, let it happen. Come with me, Angel, come with me.”
And she did. She clung to him with all her might as wave after wave of red, hot pleasure washed over her, and she cried out her release.
But her cry was drowned out my Matt’s hoarse, “Angellll!” as he threw his head back and shuddered violently. She welcomed his weight as he collapsed on top of her.
Sometime later, maybe an hour, maybe only a few minutes, Matt raised up on his elbows and looked down at her. The dark passion in her eyes had exploded, leaving them once again the color of summer leaves.
“I said it once before, then foolishly took it back,” he told her. “But now I’m saying it again, Angela, and nothing will ever make me take it b
ack this time.”
Angela’s heart began to pound at his ominous words. She held her breath, afraid of what he might say.
“There’ll be no annulment.”
Her heart stopped. “No?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want, Matt?”
“I’ve been sure since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
Angela swallowed heavily, afraid to believe what he was saying. “Then you…you want us to…stay married?” Hope coursed through her veins at his tender smile.
“More than anything in the world, Angel.”
“Oh, Matt!” Angela threw her arms around his neck and tried to hold back her sobs of relief. He wanted her! He wanted them to stay together! He wanted her for his wife!
“Does this mean you approve?”
“Yes!” She laughed with delight. “Oh, yes!” She covered his face with kisses, and he laughed with her.
“It’s just as well, since I wasn’t going to give you a choice anyway.”
“You weren’t?”
“No, I weren’t,” he said with a crooked grin.
“Why?” She held her breath and waited. Did he love her? Would he say it?
“Because a man would have to be a complete fool to let a woman like you slip away from him.”
Angela quickly lowered her eyes to hide her disappointment. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. He must feel something. He must care for me if he wants me for his wife.
What was love, anyway? Was it this constant craving for his touch, the desire—almost a need—to be with him all the time? Before she could comment, his lips took hers in the most tender, loving kiss imaginable, and she couldn’t help the tears that seeped from beneath her closed eyelids.
Matt tasted the tears and gently kissed them away. “The last thing in the world I wanted to do was make you cry,” he whispered.
“It’s all right,” she answered, her voice shaky with emotion. “They’re happy tears.”
He kissed her again, then his hands started roving. The care he took to arouse her stripped away any fear she had that he didn’t care for her. They loved each other deep into the night.
The next day was like a holiday. Nearly all the men and well over half the women were suffering too much from the previous night’s celebration to do more than lay around and moan. The streams and creeks did a brisk business all day, as the tiswin consumed till near dawn created a powerful thirst in those who overindulged.
The hunt Hal-Say and Matt had planned for that day was postponed, since Hal-Say seemed intent on spending the entire day snoring away in his wickiup. It was just as well, for Matt didn’t think he was capable of tearing himself away from Angela’s side after the incredible night they’d just spent together.
The two young lovers walked in the woods, teased, held hands, laughed, and made love beneath the sheltering limbs of a willow. It was a perfect day.
“Tell me about your home,” Angela asked as they wandered back toward camp near dusk.
“Our home,” he said, pausing to press a tender kiss to her lips. Then he told her about the Triple C and its people, some of whom she’d already met.
But as interested as Angela was in everything that touched his life, she barely heard him over the singing in her heart.
“It sounds wonderful.” she said. She smiled at him as their entwined hands swung idly between them.
“It is wonderful. You’ll love it there, and everyone there will love you.”
Anxiety suddenly seized her. “I do want your family to like me.”
“You’ve already met most of the family, and they adore you. So do I.” He pulled her into his arms for a long, searching kiss that left her trembling.
Matt devoted himself entirely to Angela for the next two days, ignoring everyone and everything else. It was a special time for both of them, sharing their new-found closeness, exploring it, reveling in it. But finally he was forced to consider practical matters.
When he was in camp, food for Hal-Say and Huera was his responsibility. He couldn’t take Angela home until there was enough food to last his adoptive parents for a while, and he wanted to take Angela home. So he must hunt.
Of course Hal-Say was more than capable of supplying for his wife and himself; he was a noted hunter and warrior. But it was the custom of Chidikáágu’ that any adult son who wasn’t responsible for providing for his in-laws should provide for his own parents, and Matt had always honored the customs of The People.
Angela sighed as she picked up the heavy basket filled with dried locust pods. She and Huera and Klea, Tahnito and Alope’s mother, had come to gather the pods just after Matt and Hal-Say left that morning.
When the women returned to camp, they would strip the pods away. The beans within would then either be boiled, roasted, or crushed into flour for use in thickening soups and stews, or baking. Locust beans were a staple in the Apache diet, and each fall every available pod was harvested.
Now their baskets were full and the women headed back to camp. Unsure of the way, Angela walked behind the other two women. Not speaking their language, she held quiet.
She kept her eyes on the trail before her and thought about what she always thought about these days—Matt. It seemed incredible that he had come into her life at its darkest point, and by his mere presence, gave her the greatest joy she’d ever known. And even more incredible than that, he seemed to receive that same joy from her.
She couldn’t wait to see him again. He’d only been gone half a day, but she missed him terribly. Her lips still tingled from his good-bye kiss. Perhaps, after a time, when they were both more secure in their feelings, she wouldn’t have this powerful need to be with him every single moment. Perhaps.
When Matt left that morning, he said he might be gone as long as several days. It just depended on how soon they found adequate game. But when he returned to the rancheria he would take her home, to the Triple C. She looked forward to that, even if the thought of living with his family did make her a bit nervous.
Angela halted when she noticed that the two women in front of her had stopped and fallen silent. Huera turned to her with a stricken look, and Angela was puzzled. Then, over her mother-in-law’s shoulder, she saw the reason.
“No,” Angela breathed in denial. The heavy basket slipped from her numb fingers. Locust pods crackled and hissed, scattering everywhere as the now empty basket bounced to the edge of the trail.
Her ears rang with the silence of pain and betrayal. Her heart stopped. Her breath stopped. Her knees threatened to buckle. She wanted to scream, to pull her hair out by the roots, to cry…to die.
A few yards ahead, where the trail broke into a small clearing, stood Matt, his arms wrapped tightly around Alope’s shoulders as the beautiful young woman stretched up to receive his blistering kiss.
Chapter Twenty
Matt waited at the edge of the clearing for the women to return. Finally he heard voices, one of which belonged to Huera. He was glad he and Hal-Say had downed that buck so soon and had been able to return to camp. He’d dreaded the possibility of spending the night away from Angela. She was in his blood, like a raging fire, and he smiled when he spied her walking behind Huera and Klea.
“Bear Killer, I am glad you are back so soon.”
Matt turned, surprised to see Alope approaching him from the opposite direction. She must have come to meet her mother. In the next instant, however, that assumption was proven wrong.
“I have missed you.” She kept coming toward him, her eyes staring boldly into his.
Before he could guess her intent, Alope glanced quickly down the path at the approaching women. Huera and Klea stopped and looked. Behind them, Angela did the same. Then Alope took a step back, launched herself through the air, and landed against Matt’s chest. Her arms wrapped themselves tightly around his neck, and she pressed her open mouth to his.
For a brief moment, Matt was too stunned to react, except to catch her w
hen she flew at him. For an Apache maiden to behave so wantonly was practically unheard of. He put his hands on her shoulders to push her away, but she just held on tighter. He finally managed to tear his mouth free. The first thing he saw was Angela, standing in the middle of the path, feet buried in a pile of locust pods, face as white as the collar on her blue gingham dress, and her eyes, dear God, her eyes. Her eyes screamed of pain and betrayal and the death of dreams.
“Duuda'!” bellowed an angry voice. “No!” Tahnito stomped into the clearing. “Unhand my sister!”
Matt was furious. He knew how everyone would view this incident, and he looked down at Alope in disgust. He dropped his hands to his sides, which left her clinging rather obviously to his neck.
Alope stepped back. The smile she gave Matt sent chills of dread racing down his spine. “Duunndiiedda, shilhúkéne,” she told Tahnito. Matt was grateful Angela couldn’t understand Alope’s lies. “Don’t be foolish, my brother. Bear Killer has promised to set aside his wife and take me in her place.”
“Duuda'!” her brother objected. “Shishxéná! I shall kill him!”
Matt stiffened and faced Tahnito. “You may try …again,” he taunted. “You have taught your sister well how to lie.”
To call an Apache a liar was one of the deepest insults possible. Their rigid social code demanded honesty from everyone, and anyone who did not adhere to that quickly became an outcast. It was not an accusation to be made lightly, nor had Matt intended that it be taken that way.
Tahnito looked ready to explode. “First you dishonor my sister by sneaking around in the woods with her, now you call her a liar! I will kill you!” The Apache crouched low and pulled his knife from the sheath at his waist.
“She is a liar, and you, my friend, are a fool if you think you can kill me.” He shoved Alope away roughly and drew his own knife.
“You may be a killer of bears, but I doubt you can do so well against a man. I’m not some poor, defenseless animal. Núuká, 'indaa.Come, white man, come and die.”
Apache-Colton Series Page 58