Nan Ryan

by Written in the Stars

  Starkeeper stayed just as he was, lying there below her, his sultry dark eyes touching her with a force so powerful she could feel her skin flushing with warmth. At last his left hand leisurely came out from beneath his head and moved to the hem of her white eyelet skirt.

  Diane held her breath as he casually reached up under the skirt, wrapping his long tanned fingers possessively around her slender ankle.

  “Beauty, I’m not clean,” he said in that low, flat voice as his hand glided up over the curve of her shapely calf to the dimpled back of her knee. “I haven’t bathed or washed up since you saw me this afternoon at the tomahawk throwing.”

  Diane foolishly felt the need to deny she’d been there. “Tomahawk-throwing contest?” Her voice sounded unusually shrill. “I have no idea what you’re—”

  “Yes, you do,” he coolly interrupted. “You were there this afternoon. You saw me throw the hatchet. Saw me split the bull’s-eye. You heard the crowd applaud me.” His hand tightened its grip on the back of her knee. “That’s when you decided to come to me.”

  Those black, burning eyes challenged her to contradict him. She didn’t. It was the truth. He had stood there in the sunlight in those tight white leggings with his bronzed chest and back and long arms gleaming with oil, and his overpowering maleness had been her final undoing.

  “Yes,” she admitted, facing the truth for the first time. “I knew then. I watched you, and I knew I would come here.”

  “I knew as well,” he said with calm authority. “I should have cleaned up for you. If you’ll wait, I’ll go wash.…”

  “No,” she murmured, helplessly beguiled by the sight of his bare bronzed chest and long, muscled arms gleaming with the residue of oil. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you’re not clean.”

  His fingers stroking the sensitive bend of her knee, Starkeeper finally rolled up into a sitting position. He turned slightly, and his right hand joined his left beneath her white skirt. Diane sighed when she felt the coolness of his wide silver bracelet graze the bare flesh of her leg.

  With both hands wrapped around the backs of her knees, Starkeeper tipped his head back, looked up at her, and said softly, “Beauty, if I make love to you, then you’ll be dirty, too. Are you sure you want that?”

  He waited, supposing that the beautiful but equally astute woman would immediately grasp the double meaning of his question. Starkeeper wasn’t speaking merely of the sweat and oil and semen his body would leave on hers, in hers. He was asking her if afterward she would feel unclean for making love to him.

  For making love with an Indian.

  He hoped she would say no, hoped she would assure him that his loving wouldn’t make her dirty. That neither of them was or would be dirty. That there was nothing the least bit profane about the two of them making love.

  Unfortunately Diane was much too nervous and excited to comprehend his meaning. She knew only that she was tingling with the sweet anticipation of being in his arms and she didn’t care about the oil and perspiration that covered those arms, that smooth bronzed chest. She knew nothing else but that she wanted to be held and loved by him. She wanted to know nothing else.

  “I don’t care,” she murmured throatily, “how dirty you are. I don’t care how dirty you make me.”

  After she said those words to him, Diane’s violet eyes dreamily darkened to purple, and her heavily lashed lids slipped closed. So she didn’t see the expression of hurt that fleetingly clouded Starkeeper’s dark eyes or the flash of cold fury that replaced it.

  Starkeeper’s fingers aggressively tightened on her flesh, and he roughly jerked her down to her knees before him. Diane’s eyes flew open, and her breath caught in her throat. That ever-present mingling of fear and fascination was so strong her heart raced as she shyly, nervously smiled at him. His hands abruptly released her and Diane cautiously sat back on her heels.

  Starkeeper braced his weight on a stiffened bare arm and looked into her half-frightened purple eyes. “Take your hair down for me, Beauty,” he commanded.

  Diane immediately complied. Lifting tense arms, she anxiously removed a smooth silver clasp, laid it aside, and shook her head so that the long, unbound tresses would fall around her shoulders and down her back. She waited for him to speak, but he said nothing.

  “We—we have hair of the same color,” she said inanely, so nervous and expectant she hardly knew what she was saying.

  Starkeeper’s right hand shot out. He touched a long, silky lock that lay atop her smooth shoulder and said, “But not skin of the same color, eh, Beauty?” He released her hair, his eyes locked with hers.

  “No,” she said without hesitation, her purple eyes lowering from his compelling gaze to inspect his naked torso and sculpted shoulders shamelessly. “No. You’re so dark, and I—I’m so—”

  “—so white,” he finished for her, his black eyes cold, distant. “So flawlessly, untouchably, chastely white.”

  Diane’s eyes lifted to meet his. She started to speak but stopped as his right hand suddenly gripped the midriff of her white eyelet blouse. Swiftly he pulled the blouse free of her skirt’s tight waistband. His fingers immediately went to the white buttons going down the center of the low-necked blouse.

  The blood started to pound in Diane’s ears as Starkeeper began deftly to unbutton her blouse, telling her as he did so, of the ways he wanted to make love to her. She thrilled to the sound of that low, monotonic voice as the lean, handsome Indian spoke of all the shocking, forbidden things they would do. Her face flushed when he told her he meant to see, to smell, to touch, to taste every unblemished inch of her silky white flesh. She tingled from head to toe as he warned her that before this night was over, his dark-skinned savage’s body would possess hers totally.

  “This oiled, dirty dark body of mine will be on you,” he said, his lean fingers pushing the tiny buttons through the buttonholes, “all over you”—he flipped open the last button—“and in you, Beauty. I’ll be buried deep inside you.” He swept the opened white blouse apart.

  Starkeeper’s eyes lifted to hers. In his dark, penetrating gaze Diane saw a confusing blend of passion and hatred. Tenderness was there in his dark glance, but so was cruelty. Touching adoration as well as menacing hostility.

  It was clear that this dark, irresistible Indian who was going to make heated love to her here in this firelit tipi on the vast Wind River Indian Reservation didn’t like her. He desired her, but he didn’t admire her.

  Diane didn’t care.

  It didn’t seem to matter at that moment. It didn’t matter that the things he said to her had nothing to do with love or respect or even a fondness for her. From the first minute she’d seen him that hot Denver twilight straining against the bars of his cage, she’d been shamefully curious and attracted by the sexual mystery he exuded.

  She wanted him. It was that elemental. She had wanted him then; she wanted him now. Her body wanted his body with a powerful animal hunger that she could neither understand nor control. And she couldn’t—wouldn’t —stop wanting him until he’d taken her.

  “Having second thoughts, my Beauty?” Starkeeper asked, his warm hand spreading on her throat.

  “No,” she said decisively, “no second thoughts, my Beast.”

  His lean fingers skimmed up and down the bare column of her throat. “What is it you want from me? Tell me, Beauty. Say it for me.”

  “I want you to make love to me,” she told him. “And I want to make love with you as well.”

  A flash of new heat leaped into his dark eyes at her confession. In that low, flat voice, he said, “My God, you are exquisite, Beauty. Exquisite. I have wanted to touch you like this since the first time I laid eyes on you.” His warm fingertips stroked the sides of her throat, his middle finger locating the throbbing pulse point. “Do you remember the first time I saw you?”

  “Yes,” she murmured breathlessly, feeling his fingers spreading fire as he pushed the open blouse off her shoulders.

  “You
came to my cage alone in the dusk. You were dressed in a white blouse, tight buckskins, and moccasins, and your hair was loose like it is now. I reached out for you, and you screamed in fear.”

  Starkeeper’s hand moved down to the swell of Diane’s breasts. He flattened his palm against the soft ivory flesh exposed above the lacy trim of her satin chemise.

  “I know,” she whispered, her breath short and rapid.

  “But you kept coming back to me,” he said in that low, resonant voice. “Why?”

  “Because I—I couldn’t stay away,” she breathlessly admitted.

  “You tortured me, Beauty,” he went on, speaking slowly, absently caressing the rise of her swelling left breast. “You even came to torment me one night in your nightgown.”

  “I wore a robe,” she said, defending herself.

  “I could clearly see the outline of your pale body through your nightgown.” He looked into her eyes. “The bars on my cage saved you that night.”

  “I know,” she said, vividly remembering the night in question. “I thought you were sleeping, but all along you were watching me.”

  “Yes, I was,” he lazily admitted as his fingers continued to caress her, touching her with gentleness. “I can still see you with the wind in your hair and that blue nightgown pressing against your—your …” His words trailed away. His handsome face abruptly hardened. “You cruelly taunted me when you came with your lover and I—”

  “No,” Diane interrupted, protesting, “you have it all wrong. I—”

  “Kiss me, Beauty,” he commanded, his dark eyes gone icy-hot, his stroking fingers no longer slow and gentle.

  Diane’s breath came out in a rush when he impatiently cupped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her forcefully to him. He leaned up and captured her mouth with his sensual lips. His kiss was one of such quick, total possession that Diane felt as if her lips would be forever branded by the imprint of his.

  Without preliminary, he forced her mouth to open wide to him. His tongue immediately thrust inside to meet and mate with hers. An explosion of heat swept through her as Starkeeper’s masterful tongue did incredibly seductive things to the sensitive insides of her mouth.

  He came up to a kneeling position, bringing her up with him. He raised his left knee from the pallet and put his bare foot flat on the floor. He pulled her still closer, urging her back against his raised knee. His hand moved up from her neck to cradle the back of her head as they knelt in the firelight.

  His invasive seeking kiss continued, and the fire that burned through her was so swift and sudden it was unlike anything Diane had ever known.

  Her head fell back as her whole body arched into his fierce embrace, and her eyes went half shut in unashamed pleasure.

  Chapter 27

  Diane was breathless and weak when finally Starkeeper’s searing lips released hers. Her head sagged back against his supporting arm and her eyes nervously fluttered open. She looked up at the dark, handsome man who had just kissed her as no other ever had and saw a pair of beautiful black eyes blazing with savage sexual heat.

  For a long, tension-filled minute Starkeeper looked directly into her eyes, and Diane was struck anew by the compelling blend of promised pleasure and potential danger this strange man embodied. Hypnotized by those hot dark eyes, she knew she courted peril by being here but didn’t care.

  Diane sighed softly when Starkeeper slowly bent his dark head and kissed her again. A kiss totally different from his first forceful caress. His lips were no longer hard and punishing. They were soft and warm, and they brushed gently back and forth across hers until Diane strained to him, yearning to have that commanding mouth settle more firmly on hers.

  As if he had read her mind, Starkeeper’s lips closed fully over hers in an incredibly pleasing kiss which was midway between teasing invitation and total possession.

  It was a kiss of such heart-stopping sweetness that Diane hardly realized that while Starkeeper’s mouth was pressed to hers, his hands were sliding the open white eyelet blouse down her arms and off. Her lips clung to his as his lean fingers went to the lacy chemise straps atop her shoulders.

  The honeyed kiss continued while Starkeeper effortlessly peeled the satin chemise down to Diane’s waist. His mouth remained melded to hers as a dark hand came up to cup her upturned face tenderly. His other arm went around her. Diane felt his fingertips caressing her cheek and the cool, solid metal of his bracelet against the sensitive skin of her back.

  Then his palm flattened just above her waist and he drew her flush against him. Diane sighed with joy when her bare, swelling breasts touched his broad, naked chest. She arched her back, pressing herself as close to his warmth as possible, her nipples tightening into hard, sensitive points of sensation at the minute of contact. Breathless, she tore her lips from his.

  “Beast, Beast,” she gasped excitedly, and her arms stole anxiously up around his neck to draw him closer. “Hold me. Hold me tight.”

  “Yes, Beauty,” he responded in that appealingly flat, unexcitable voice, “I’ll hold you. For as long as you want.”

  It was glorious.

  The feel of Starkeeper’s oiled smooth chest pressing so intimately against her tingling breasts was wonderful. It became even more wonderful when his sensual lips again covered hers and Starkeeper kissed her with a disturbing kind of barely controlled heat and hunger. A kiss designed to draw from Diane exactly the response she gave him.

  Diane squirmed and rubbed herself erotically against Starkeeper’s slippery chest and sucked anxiously at the arousing tongue that kept tormenting her by sliding into and then withdrawing from her eagerly seeking mouth.

  If Diane was vitally aware that they both were naked to the waist, so was the man kissing her. The diamond-hard nipples of her pale, bare breasts pressing against his chest and the sweet, responsive mouth clinging to his lips had Starkeeper so aroused he was tempted to shove her skirts up out of his way, hastily unlace his leggings, and come into her just as they were, kneeling in the firelight. What sweet relief it would be to wait no longer, quickly, greedily to take what he wanted without any thought or concern for her pleasure, then send her on her way.

  Starkeeper didn’t do it.

  He deepened his kiss and caressed her silky back, stroking her gently, molding her to him, touching her in a slow, possessive way he knew she would like. He patiently took his time.

  While this beautiful white woman might foolishly suppose that to be swiftly, roughly taken by an untamed savage would be exciting and satisfying, Starkeeper knew better. She would derive no pleasure from the act if he came into her now. She was not yet ready. He would wait until she was. He would make her ready.

  More than ready.

  Starkeeper’s lips at last left Diane’s but remained on her feverish face. His mouth moved across her flushed cheek to her right ear. He gently bit the dainty ivory lobe, then the sensitive spot just below it. His open lips moved down the side of her swanlike neck, his sharp teeth teasingly nipping a path to her collarbone; then his lips slid around to the center of her throat.

  His dark head turned to the side and he placed a warm, moist kiss in the hollow of her throat, the tip of his tongue tracing the delicate configuration of bone beneath the pale flesh. As he kissed her throat, one of his black braids fell onto Diane’s bare breast. While his tongue stroked her throat, the white leather strip binding the end of his fallen braid tickled her taut nipple.

  Diane’s head fell back. Her passion-glazed eyes closed, and she drew a short, shallow breath through her mouth. She let her arms fall limply at her sides.

  Starkeeper’s mouth left her throat. He raised his dark head. Diane’s eyes came open. She looked at him. He purposely held her gaze as he slowly sat back on his heels, his hands sliding up her sides to her underarms. He held her there kneeling before him. His black eyes leisurely lowered to her pale, bare breasts. Diane felt her aching nipples immediately respond to the heat of his glance. She held her breath and waited. E
very nerve in her awakened body was screaming and straining against her flesh. Please, she silently begged, oh, please.

  Starkeeper’s hands gripped her firmly just under her arms while his eyes caressed her breasts. His were sensitive hands. He could feel on his palms the dewy perspiration of her rising sexual excitement. To touch the hot dampness of her velvety underarms was highly arousing to Starkeeper, the unique titillating kind of thing a woman wouldn’t understand. Only a man would find it exciting. It was sweetly erotic to Starkeeper, and as his hands appreciatively pressed against that silky dewiness, he felt his growing erection surge and strain against his tight white leggings.

  “Beauty, sweet Beauty,” he murmured, and drew her closer as he leaned up to meet her.

  He pressed a gentle kiss to the soft undercurve of her left breast, and then Diane’s breath exploded in a loud rush when Starkeeper’s hot, open mouth enclosed the throbbing nipple.

  “God … oh, God,” she whispered mindlessly as her hands came up to his dark head.

  Diane’s pale fingers curled around the back of his neck. Her other hand tenaciously gripped a leather-trimmed black braid. She moaned and sighed as Starkeeper kissed and licked and sucked on her breast. Her eyes opening and closing with pleasure, Diane decided then and there that what he was doing to her now—this very minute— was all she wanted. They need go no further. This was sheer ecstasy. There could be no greater ecstasy. If, for just this one night, she could hold his dark, handsome head to her breasts and feel that marvelous mouth hotly enclosing her like this, she’d ask for nothing more.

  Ever, ever.

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered, bending to him, lowering her face to kiss the gleaming hair of the dark head bent to her. “Oh, Beast, it feels good … sooooo good.…” She spoke softly, her lips pressed into the shimmering blue-black locks that smelled so clean. “I like to feel your teeth,” she murmured as he very carefully, gently bit her nipple, then raked his teeth back and forth over it.

  From that point on it was all like a beautiful erotic dream to Diane. Her skin was aglow with warmth; her eyes were shining with passion. She was more than willing to allow her commanding lover to take charge fully and lead her. To guide her wherever he wanted to take her. To do whatever he pleased to her, with her.