Cheyenne Captive

by Georgina Gentry - Iron Knife's Family 01 - Cheyenne Captive

She didn’t fight long. With his superior strength, he lifted her clear off the ground and his lips found the hollow of her throat and then, as she arched backward over his arms, his mouth went to her breasts. She could not stop from crying out at the feel of that hot, moist caress.

  Gradually, they both slid to the ground and she clasped his head to her nipple as she felt the soft cushion of the grass beneath her. She gasped in pleasure as his mouth went to her navel and then down one thigh. She could feel his hands forcing her thighs apart.

  “I must kiss the font of all my pleasure,” she heard him whisper as his breath felt warm against the triangle at the top of her legs.

  “You shouldn’t!” she protested. “You really shouldn’t kiss me there!” She was still uneasy with the idea and tried to pull away from him. But she was helpless on her back against his superior strength as he spread her legs.

  “Put your hands behind your head!” he ordered harshly. “You are my captive and I will do as I will with you and you will not try to stop me!”

  Numbly, she obeyed, knowing he could force her obedience by sheer strength and she put her hands above her head and let him do as he would. When his warm lips touched her most secret place, she whimpered and her hands gripped the grass above her head and she could not stop her eager body from arching itself against the moistness of his searching mouth.

  She felt him forcing her thighs even further apart and she forgot about everything but the sensation of the blade of his warm tongue sliding home in her scabbard. She was one quivering nerve as she gave in to the feel of his lips and she had to bite her own to keep back the moan of satisfaction and excitement as she came. It seemed a long time that she drifted in an almost unconscious state and when she finally opened her eyes, he was looking down.

  “Have I satisfied you, Little One?”

  She was embarrassed. “You know you have.”

  “I want to hear you say it,” he demanded.

  “Yes!” She almost screamed it. “You have more than satisfied me, you have made me writhe in hunger like I never knew existed and then sated me!”

  As he looked down into her eyes she could see the veins standing out in his neck and feel the unfulfilled throbbing with each heartbeat of his maleness against her leg.

  Summer reached up to touch one of his hard nipples and he gasped.

  “And now, I will satisfy you!” she declared and her small teeth lightly bit his chest.

  “You are a yellow-haired witch,” he moaned aloud. “A dream creature like the Mihn, pulling men under in the bottomless lakes!”

  “Then relax and enjoy being taken to your doom,” she whispered. “You may have had many women, but none of them can have loved you with the passion I am going to give you!”

  She sat up and pushed him down onto his back, and then she leaned over and kissed both edges of his mouth. Her hair trailed across him as she sat up and stroked his scarred face and chest with feather-light touches of her fingers.

  His hands came up, trying to pull her down on his chest but she shook them off. “No,” she protested, “this time you are the slave and must lie there and let me do as I will with you.”

  Obediently, he slid his hands to his sides as he humored her. But she felt him tremble all over with the effort of keeping his hands off her. She knew that no doubt those same big hands had broken men’s backs, strangled the life from those far more powerful than she. Summer felt heady with the power of her sexuality, heady with the way she could control this giant, dominant male.

  Her lips caressed the hard, flat belly and he stirred restlessly.

  “Be still!” she ordered. “I’m not through. I’m going to make you ache with wanting me, until you think you can’t stand it anymore!”

  “I’ve passed that point!” He sounded tense.

  “But I haven’t made you want me as much as I intend to,” she whispered as her mouth moved down his taut belly. The male scent of him excited her and she did something she would have thought almost unthinkable only a few minutes before: she kissed his manhood.

  Summer was suddenly transported back in time and she was a priestess in old Egypt, worshiping at the shrine of the eternal male phallus. What she did, she did instinctively now that she had been freed from her straitlaced Victorian upbringing. This was her man and it was her right to love him as she chose and there was nothing right or wrong. The female in her seemed to know exactly what to do although she had been so lately a virgin.

  Her mouth caressed him, teasing him with her warm tongue, tasting the saltiness of him. He was hers now—all hers, for she had kissed all his body.

  He began to thrust upward with his strong hips, still keeping his hands clenched on the grass as she had ordered.

  “Please, Summer!” he gasped. “I can’t take any more of this. Please—!”

  And with that plea, she gripped his thighs and took him deep in her mouth, feeling his seed surge as he thrust upward and his hands came up to grasp her face to his groin.

  For a long moment, he surged and she tasted the wonder of the slightly salty lifeseed and she had never loved him so much.

  Finally, he lay still, breathing heavily and she sat up and looked down at him, knowing no other woman had ever given him so much pleasure.

  He rose on one elbow and pulled her up to lie beside him and he looked with tenderness into her face. “You are truly magic!” he murmured, kissing her hair. “How can a virgin make such a love slave of a man? You have to be bewitched, for you hold my heart hostage.”

  “No, I am the captive, remember? And you have taught me love in a way I never even knew existed.”

  He pulled her to him in an embrace that crushed her. “I will never let you go even if you want to leave! I swear I have never made love like this to another woman; never even knew it could be so good! I have given you my tasoom, the deepest, most tender part of my heart. I don’t think I could let you go, no matter what!”

  “I will never leave you, my dearest,” she promised, kissing the hard planes of his face. “You must learn to trust me for I will never, never hurt you!”

  “I think if you did, I would kill you for it!” His voice had a hard, uncertain edge. “If you think you could lie in the arms of another man and laugh at the savage you had toyed with—”

  She kissed his mouth to stop his words and felt very small and fragile in his arms that could so easily crush her, but she was not afraid. “I will never leave you,” she said again. “And when you finally believe me and trust me, our love will be even better.”

  For a few minutes, they lay in each other’s embrace. Then Iron Knife sat up regretful. “We must return to camp.”

  He stood and helped her to her feet while she yawned sleepily. He tugged her shift on for her and caressed her with his hard hands as he pulled it down her body. She helped dress him, too, touching and stroking him as she helped him put on his clothes.

  Finally, they started down the path to the village. But she tripped in the darkness and would have fallen had he not reached out and caught her. Then he swung her up in his arms and started off in long, easy strides.

  “I can walk!” she protested sleepily, resting her face against his chest.

  “You didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it.” He grinned down at her with white, even teeth. Carelessly, she brushed her mouth against his nipple as he carried her.

  His arms tightened on her. “Stop that,” he commanded, “or we will spend all night on this hillside!”

  She obeyed and let him carry her through the now quiet camp. Only a horse snorted and stamped its hooves as they settled down in the warm buffalo furs and he drifted off to sleep clasped in her arms. But she lay sleepless a long time, wondering at this conflict within her between the militant feminist and the purring female who surrendered everything to rejoice in being dominated by this uncivilized male animal.

  Perhaps what she had been battling against all this time was the unfair treatment of soft, civilized white men who could for
ce her to do their bidding but never make her pleased to yield. Iron Knife adored her; she had no reason to rebel anymore. She was fulfilled and satisfied as she drifted off to sweep. She was not Priscilla, her mother, being afraid and dominated. Summer could stand as an equal with her man and it was a wonderful, free feeling.

  It was the next morning that more trouble came to the camp. Summer and Iron Knife sat in front of their tepee. Dogs barked, people shouted. There was a flurry of noise and confusion as a group of short, very fierce-looking Indians rode into the encampment. Summer stared at the group and especially at the white man who rode with them. He was dressed Mexican-style and he looked rough and evil. The man stared back at her, tipping his sombrero in a leering grin. She realized then that part of his right ear was gone. The remainder’s edge looked ragged as if it had been chewed off in a fight.

  Iron Knife sat beside her, repairing arrows as the men rode past.

  Summer stared at the riders with a tremor of dislike, thinking some of them were the darkest, most savage Indians she had ever seen. “Who are they?”

  “Comanche and their allies, the Kiowa.” Iron Knife paused and looked at the group. “Some of their leaders are coming in from Tejas, which the whites call Texas. They have fought the Texans without pause for many years. Now that Texas is part of the United States, they war against the United States, too.”

  Fascinated, as if she had just seen a poisonous snake, Summer studied the swarthy man who rode with the Comanche. He dressed like a Spanish vaquero with a wicked knife stuck in his belt. Looking back at her as she stared after him, he tipped his sombrero again and smiled widely. His teeth were sharp and prominent like a lobo wolf’s, Summer thought uneasily. She felt a shiver of warning go up her back.

  He wants me, she thought as she reached out and put her hand on Iron Knife’s arm for reassurance. That man looks at me like he already imagines raping me. She made a quick decision to stay away from him while he was in camp.

  The man twisted in his saddle to keep his eyes on her and ran his tongue over his lips in an obscene manner. His eyes seemed to strip the clothes from her body.

  Whoever he was, she thought with a shudder, he had rape on his mind; her rape.

  Chapter Eleven

  Iron Knife felt her small hand tighten on his bronzed arm. They both looked after the group riding down through the tepees.

  She bit her lip. “That man, he looks white. Why does he ride with the Comanche?”

  “Comanchero.” Iron Knife’s lip curled in distaste. “That is the one they call El Lobo,’ the wolf. He leads the Comanchero out of their stronghold in the Sangre de Cristo mountains west of Texas.”

  They watched the men riding down the line of tepees toward the Council lodge.

  “Comanchero?” she questioned. “Is he Indian? He looks Spanish.”

  Iron Knife stared after the group as they dismounted, dislike and disdain in his tone. “Comancheros are sometimes Spanish, outlaw Anglos, mixed bloods of every kind. Scum and bandits, that’s what they are. They have traded with the Texas tribes for many years now, supplying weapons, bullets in exchange for stolen horses, cattle, women.”

  Her pale blue eyes widened in surprise. “Women?”

  He nodded. “They’ll take children, too. The Comanche take captives on raids and trade them to the Comanchero.”

  “What do the Comanchero do with the captives?” She looked like a small, curious child as she watched the men talking to some of the Cheyenne men in front of the Council tepee. In the background, he heard the camp crier riding about, announcing the visitors.

  “Some of them are ransomed if the families can raise the money. The Comancheros sell others to the Mexican silver mines to use as slaves. The pretty ones end up in whorehouses or someone like El Lobo keeps an occasional one for himself.”

  Summer shuddered. “What a horrible thought.”

  He put his big hand over her small one. “I never told you everything that was discussed at Council the night your fate was decided. Some thought we should trade you to the Comanche to be sold off to the Mexicans for use in a whorehouse.”

  She looked at him. “Would you have let them do that?”

  He studied her tenderly. “Did you not see my hand go to my knife that night? I was ready to fight my way out of that Council and take you with me.” He smiled mischievously. “But maybe you would have been one of the lucky ones. Instead of ending up in a whorehouse, you might have become the mistress of a powerful Comanchero like El Lobo.”

  Summer wrinkled her nose. “Him! He looks filthy! I’ll bet he even smells bad.”

  Iron Knife laughed as he stood up and stretched. “You will never have to get close enough to find out. They will only be in camp a few hours. There is disagreement among the Comanche and Kiowa whether to try to make a treaty with the whites or keep fighting them. Probably they want to see what their allies, the Cheyenne and Arapaho, think.”

  He put away the arrows he had been repairing. “All the warriors will be expected to put on their best and come to the meeting.”

  “The women are not invited, as usual?”

  He pulled her to her feet, slapped her rump as men do to a woman whose body is familiar to them, liking the feel of her bottom. “You can sit and peek under the edge of the tepee if you wish, if you don’t mind watching a bunch of old men smoke and beat around the bush for hours. It’s not polite to get right to the point at a Council meeting.”

  She giggled and rolled her eyes. “No, thanks. It’s going to be a hot day for late September, and I don’t think I want to sit in the heat when I don’t speak enough Indian or border Spanish to follow what’s going on. You tell me about it later. I think I’ll go down to the river and swim.”

  “Don’t go by yourself,” he warned. “You never know what will happen out here in the wilderness.”

  “Okay,” she agreed as she ambled off toward Pony Woman’s tepee.

  Iron Knife called after her wistfully. “What you’re doing sounds like more fun. As soon as the meeting’s over, I’ll join you in the water. There’s a private little nook around the bend where we could spend the rest of the afternoon.”

  She turned around and laughed, still walking backward. “Don’t you ever think of anything else?”

  He winked at her. “Do you?”

  With a sigh, he went inside to dress for the Council meeting. He was not looking forward to sitting through the Council with their fierce, southern allies. The warlike braves could only be here for one reason.

  He was right, of course, he thought wearily as he sat cross-legged with the others in the big tepee watching the old men smoke. As the discussion began in border Spanish and sign language, Iron Knife fought an impulse to yawn. It wasn’t polite to get right to the point and the old ones wanted to remember every battle they had all fought together as allies since they had made peace with each other in 1840.

  Frowning slightly, he studied the swarthy Comanchero who sat cross-legged next to the Kiowa leader, Aperian Crow. He shouldn’t be here, Iron Knife thought as the pipe was passed toward the Spaniard, he is not Indian, not even in his heart.

  “Wait!” Old Blue Eagle made a dissenting motion and the pipe paused in the hands of old Bull Hump, the Comanche. Disapproval etched itself on the old Cheyenne’s face. “This white.” He nodded toward the Comanchero. “This hombre is not Indian, he should not be allowed to smoke.”

  “I deal with your allies a long time,” the man protested. “They share their food and women slaves with me.”

  “But you are not Indian,” Clouds Above said, “and we do not trust you.”

  The swarthy Spaniard glared at Iron Knife. “I see a half-breed in the Council meeting. Am I not as welcome to smoke the pipe as he?”

  Scalp Taker frowned. “We have never thought of the one you mention as white. In his heart, he is as Cheyenne as any man of us.”

  Iron Knife gritted his teeth and stood up, anger and indignation in his soul.

  The chiefs nodded
at him, giving him permission to speak.

  “My father was the great chief, War Bonnet,” he retorted with a scornful curl of his lip, “and I am a Dog Soldier, a carrier of the Hotamtsit. How dare you question my right to sit in this Council! We have a right to question you because you sell out your own kind for money. I say you are no better than the carrion Pawnee and Crow who work as scouts for the bluecoats, accepting white man’s money in exchange for leading the soldiers to Indian villages!”

  He heard murmurs of agreement among the others and many heads nodded as Iron Knife sat down.

  Old Blue Eagle spoke. “What the brave Dog Soldier says is true. A man who would sell out his own kind for profit is a man without a soul, a man who is evil.” He looked toward the visiting Comanche and Kiowa chiefs. “Why did you bring this Comanchero among us?”

  Old Bull Hump shook his gray braids. “I would not have brought him, for, like you, I trust him little.”

  Little Buffalo, the Comanche with the reputation for a ruthless hatred of whites, stood now and touched his chest. “I brought this man with us. We have come to talk with our Cheyenne and Arapaho brothers about uniting to attack the whites although not all Comanche want to take the war trail.” He looked scornfully toward old Bull Hump.

  The fierce Kiowa leader, Aperian Crow, spoke. “If you decide to join us in fighting, the Comanchero will be useful in supplying weapons and bullets as he has in the past. He asked to come along, smelling out profit as a buzzard sniffs rotten meat. But the Cheyenne are right.” He gestured. “This is a meeting for Indians.” He looked toward El Lobo. “I say the Comanchero should wait outside, since he will have no part in the decision-making.”

  Little Buffalo nodded in agreement. “I have no love for the Comanchero. Any man who would sell weapons to kill his own people is beneath contempt, but useful, nevertheless. Since I brought him, I now say to him, ‘Go wait without and amuse yourself. If we reach an agreement needing your services, we will call you back in.’”

  The Comanchero stood up, anger dark on his face and went outside the Council tepee.