by Diana Palmer
"Of course," he replied.
She smiled again, excused herself, and went up to bed. So did Matt, but not to sleep. He sat in a chair by his bed and let his mind go back to the ex-soldier's cutting remarks.
Since he'd come east, he'd been spared most of the racial prejudice that his relatives suffered on reservations all over theDakotasandMontana. He lived as a white man, was treated as a white man. By denying what he really was, he'd escaped all the hardships of trying to live as an Indian in a white world. He'd been hiding here inChicagosince 1891. After his schooling he'd begun to play a game of make-believe, pretending to be something he wasn't. And for what? For wealth and prestige and influence, the things that Tess had once said would make it possible for him to stay here even as an Indian. Certainly the Indians who traveled with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show had managed to live among whites. But, he wondered,didany of them aspire to white society, or were they content to be curiosities?
Tess had such faith in human nature, he thought cynically, and he had so little. He'd seen the worst of people, since his young manhood. Except for Tess and her father, he'd known little kindness from whites while he wore a breechcloth and carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. Tess knew him as he really was, as he had been. She'd never seemed to mind. In fact, she'd been proud of him. She still was, despite his own misgivings.
He felt uncomfortable, remembering how she liked to revere the past and the life they'd lived. She had no shame that her father worked among Indians. She had no shame that she adored Matt. She spoke Sioux without inhibition, and she had a temper and a wild, independent spirit that he admired.
She made him feel ashamed of the way he'd acted. He was afraid of the truth, but Tess wasn't. She had the courage of her convictions. She was utterly fearless, as she'd been tonight, leading a procession to the jail to protest the arrest of an innocent woman. She walked the last mile for people she cared about…which encompassed most of the human race. It didn't really surprise him to realize that she'd have done the same thing for him, even if she hadn't loved him.
He got up finally and stripped to his drawers, loosing his black hair from its braid so that it fell down to his waist. He looked in the mirror above the dresser and glared at his reflection. With his hair down and stripped like this, his Indian heritage was so obvious as to be blatant. No one who saw him so could ever mistake him for anything except what he was.
He groaned, hating himself. What had Tess said about mirrors? That she hated her face because it wasn't Sioux. He cursed his own doubts. It wasn't that he'd be unwilling to have the truth generally known. But eventually it would kill him to watch Tess react to the insults and the degradation of living with him if people knew what he was. She was strong now and she fought. How long, though, could a woman fight before she fell into despair? She was so bright and beautiful, so courageous. He hated to think of her spirit being crushed by one too many a cruel insult about her Indian husband. And for him to live on the reservation now, after he'd lived so long inChicago, was unthinkable. He knew in his heart that regardless of the way things worked out, he could never again live as a Sioux.
He turned away from the mirror, thinking about tomorrow when Tess would leave and he wouldn't see her every day. Dear God, how it would hurt to lose her. And, he admitted, he was going to worry about her, across town with her friends.
What if she made another enemy like Dennis Collier? She wouldn't be totally defenseless because he'd taught her to take care of herself. But he felt more protective of her than ever.
The soft knock on the door surprised him. He went to open it just a crack.
"Matt?"
Tess was standing there, her hair down, her robe pulled and held together at the neck of her silky gown.
He opened the door and glanced both ways, pulling her quickly inside. He shut the door and looked down at her narrowly.
"What do you want?" he asked shortly. Her eyes caressed him, fascinated with his lean, hard body, with the way he looked with his hair loose and so long.
"You looked like that twelve years ago," she recalled wistfully. "My eyes fed on you."
His chin lifted. "What do you want?" he repeated tersely. Her rapt appraisal was making his body react, and he didn't want her to see it.
"I forgot to tell you about what I found out fromNan's sister," she said.
He glared at her. "It couldn't have waited until tomorrow?"
"I won't be here tomorrow. Not long enough to talk, at least, and you mentioned an early meeting, didn't you?"
He nodded.
"I won't stay long."
He hoped not. His body was aching. He motioned her into an armchair.
"Aren't you going to sit down?" she asked.
"Is it going to take that long?" he asked mockingly.
She sighed. "All right, I'll be brief." She related the things Mrs. Greene had said about the prostitutes and her promise to try and find out the identity of those who went to Dennis's apartment.
Matt scowled. "No, that can't be so," he said after a minute. "I've done some delving into Collier's nocturnal wanderings on my own. They were to opium dens, not brothels. And a man doesn't bring a prostitute to his own home, Tess."
"Why not?" she demanded. "If he wanted to shameNan, why not?"
"Because the apartment manager would have known, and he'd have been thrown out into the streets," he replied. "Besides, a man with senses as dulled by opium as Collier's isn't capable with a woman."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that he can't be aroused in that state."
"Oh."
"You should know," he persisted. "Your friend Bailey was under the influence of laudanum, wasn't he?"
"Yes, but I had no occasion to see the effects on him in the sense you mean," she said simply. "The only nude man I've ever seen is you."
His black eyes slid over her face, her softly waving blond hair, her body in the clinging fabric. "Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?" he asked, his voice beginning to sound strained.
"Only that Edith Greene is very upset about her sister. It's heartwarming to see how much she cares forNan. I never had siblings."
"I remember."
Her pale eyes went over him like hands. The aching hunger in them was as visible as her heartbeat. She got to her feet, trying not to give away her feelings. "I'll go back to my room now," she said huskily. "I didn't mean to disturb you when you were ready for bed."
"I'm not," he said curtly. "I don't wear anything to bed."
"Oh."
The silence in the room was thick with tension. She looked at him and couldn't look away.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?" he asked roughly.
She couldn't get words out. She nodded.
"I want your eyes on me. God help me, I want nothing in the world more!" he said tersely.
As he spoke, his hands went to the fastening of his drawers. He slipped it and let them fall to the floor. He was aroused and exquisitely made, so beautiful a physical specimen. Tess audibly caught her breath as she looked at him openly.
He let out the breath he had been holding. He went to the bed and stretched out on the cover, his hair splayed out around him, his body rigid, trembling faintlywithdesire.
She moved to the side of the bed, her eyes like saucers, hesitant and hungry all at once. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.
His head turned, and his black eyes glittered up into hers. "Anything you want to do."
Her hands shook. She let her robe fall to the floor, and her hands were on the straps of her gown.
"Anything except that."
She swallowed, shivering. "Don't you want to see me?"
His jaw tautened. "With all my heart. But it's too dangerous."
"Please." She slid the straps down, holding his eyes. "Please. Let me. I want to, so badly!"
He grimaced, but he didn't speak as she let the fabric slither down her slender body, revealing every secret of its contours to him.
He sighed in sheer, sweet defeat. "So will I." He held out his arms.
She went to him, trembling as he drew her down with him and turned, pulling her nude body completely against him with her legs tangling in his, the evidence of his desire pressing hot and swollen against her belly.
"Oh,Lord." She groaned as he rolled over with her and over again, their bodies touching intimately, sliding together and apart, the glory of skin against skin holding them spellbound. All the lights were on, and she wasn't embarrassed. He was gloriously formed, and she loved the sight of him.
He lifted himself a little away from her and looked for a long time before he bent to her breasts. Even then he was slow and tender, every movement a whisper of pleasure.
Her body moved against him, blindly searching for what he'd given her before, there on the beach. He obliged her in tender, breathlessly invasive ways, his lips traveling from her breasts over her soft belly to sensitive spots inside her thighs. And all the while she whimpered, a fist against her lips to keep from crying out her pleasure in the stillness of the night.
His long hair fell around her like a black cloud as his mouth worked its way back up to her swollen mouth and possessed it. One long, muscular leg slid between both of hers. While he kissed her, he pleasured her with his expert fingers, teasing and probing and exploring until she arched up against them and let him fulfill her in a firestorm of ecstasy.
And even that wasn't enough. Her tormented eyes looked into his as he brought her hand to his body and guided its slow, trembling strokes.
"There must…be a way," she whimpered. "Oh, God, I want you. I want all of you, inside my body!"
"Tess!"
She was under him, against him. He had no willpower, no strength to resist her. She moved between his legs while he looked at her in anguish, too enthralled to stop her.
Her body lifted. She tugged at his hard thighs, guiding him, softly pleading with her eyes and her lips.
She was…against him. His eyes closed as he felt her softness, felt her warm and moist femininity pleading to be filled.
He looked into her eyes, searching them whilehisbody poised on the knife-edge of disaster.
One of her long, white legs curled around his, and she lifted, shivering, feeling the hardness softly beginning to bury itself inside her. She swallowed. Her lips parted. She could barely breathe. He wasn't fighting her. He was…watching her.
She was too weak. She tried to lift further against him, but her body shivered with the effort. She bit her lip and sobbed as he hovered there, neither advancing nor withdrawing.
Itwas too late, he thought with resignation. She could be pregnant from the touch of him like this, when he was excited. There would be no more risk regardless of what he let her do.
With a faint smile, holding her gaze, he let his body relax, and as it relaxed, he penetrated her so deeply that she gasped in shock. Even with his initiation of two nights ago, there was still a flash of pain, and muscles unused to invasion were stretched in new and awesome ways.
He moved experimentally from side to side, feeling her response to him as she stiffened and her hands dug into his back.
"Itwas painful," he whispered, moving seductively against her. "It won't be again. Lift your legs around my hips."
She obeyed him, fascinated by the hot glitter of his eyes, by the sudden sensuality of his body as he enforced his possession of her with sharp, faintly violent little motions that sent her mad with pleasure.
"Don't cry out," he whispered above her. "The sound of passion is unmistakable."
Under them, the springs were audible. She looked at him with mingled pleasure and apprehension.
"Yes," he whispered. "We're going to make too much noise, especially when you start writhing under me. And you will writhe, Tess."
He drew away from her, causing her to cry out softly in pure fear of the loss of him.
He got up from the bed and lifted her, his face taut, his eyes blazing.
"You'd let me have you in the living room with the doors open," he observed, his eyes narrow and appreciative as they gazed at her trembling body."And I'dtake you there, without a qualm. You see how violent this is, how uncontrollable? I tried to warn you, and you wouldn't listen. Now we both have to take the consequences."
"I want you," she whimpered.
"You're going to have me," he said huskily. "As much of me as you can take, for as long as I can hold out."
He laid her down on the soft rug and stood over her, his body taut and vibrant with unsatisfied passion. With a rough sigh, he went to the door and turned the key and latched the bolt.
He moved over her with mindless intent, seeing the way her legs opened for him, the way her breasts went taut. She was completely without reserve, shuddering already with the promise of ecstasy. Her eyes were blind with it, her hands seeking, shaking.
When he went into her, she shivered and sobbed.
His lean fingers went to her soft hips and dug in, jerking her to him in quick, rough movements that only intensified the hot throb of her body. Her arms fell back beside her head, and she arched, crooning in a husky, pleading cry as she met his eyes and watched him take her.
He'd never dreamed that Tess was capable of such sensual abandon, such blatant passion. She matched his sharp movements, bit her lip bloody keeping the cries from escaping her tight throat. He was above her, inside her, rising and fallingwithbeautiful rippling muscles, sensual rhythm, his eyes hot on her as he taunted her body with his.
She sobbed with frustration, grasping at the elusive sweetness and groaning when she couldn't quite reach it. He pushed and pulled away, twisted and rolled, laughing deep in his throat as she went impossibly high, only to fall back and wait for the next wave to carry her up again.
"Stop it…"she choked out, lifting in a shivering arch. "Make it stop…make it stop…please! Please!"
"Don't scream," he whispered roughly.
And then it was fierce and violent and demanding. He drove into her with such ardor that she climaxed almost at once, but before she could recover, he took her up again on a tidal wave of fulfillment that grew and grew and grew until she bit into his shoulder to keep from screaming and her body went into helpless convulsions that shook them both from head to toe.
Only when she was near unconsciousness did he give in to his own need and fulfill it. He thought that he would never survive what he felt then. He closed his eyes and shuddered and shuddered until his body felt bruised from the force of the pleasure he felt.
They lay together, bathed in sweat despite the chill of the room. Her hair was as damp as his. She couldn't breathe properly. Her body felt as if it had broken in several places during that maelstrom. She clung to him with real fear that he might want to lift away.
"What is it?" he whispered at her ear.
She clung tighter. "I don't want you to move away."
"I'm not going to."
She relaxed and felthimmove against her with sensual pleasure. She shivered involuntarily at the sensations he provoked.
"Can you feel me, deep in your body?" he whispered.
"Yes!"
"I can feel you, like a soft, wet cocoon." He brushed her ear with his lips. "When I can think again, I'll never forgive you for making me do this."
"I don't care. Maybe I'll die right now, and we'll never have to separate again. We can be one person forever."
The words disturbed him. His hand smoothed over her soft hair, and he lifted his head to look down into her eyes. Sated. She was sated.
He felt an earthquake of possession. Then he lifted his torso so that he could see how intimately they were joined together below the belly.
She followed his eyes and caught her breath.
He saw her curious expression and lifted just enough so she might see.
"Man and woman," he whispered. "Male and fe
male. See how we join, how we couple, how we mate."
Her eyes, fascinated, looked up into his. "Yes. How we mate."
His jaw tightened. He looked down again and moved, deliberately, watching the quicksilver ripple of her body as he rekindled the ecstasy they'd shared. He moved again and his teeth clenched.
He didn't want to. He was going to stop. He was…He pushed down hard and then again and again, watching her face as he took her with desperate passion.
"Yes," she whispered jerkily, lifting to meet him. "Yes, yes, yes!"