"Sure," Jon replied in a gruff voice. "We don't want you getting sick, do we, Silas?"
"Nope," Silas agreed. "Gotta keep our bodies well. Minds, too."
Bodies, Jon's mind repeated. If Silas wasn't here, he could show Caitlyn another way they could keep their bodies healthy. Did Caitlyn remember the wonderful feeling of satiation after they made love? Did she toss and turn at night, yearning to be in his arms — aching with frustration?
That damned blanket on her door, thin enough so he could see her shadow in the evenings when she prepared for bed, might as well have been as thick as a double bricked wall. But Silas's presence kept them apart.
If only Silas wasn't there....
"Well." Silas slapped his palms on the table, then rose. "Well, I'm glad that's settled. Look, Cat, my feet's so dadblamed itchy I gotta get out for a while. Me and Jon was just talkin' about how we needed some fresh meat to go 'long with that smoked stuff on our storage platform. And I thought I heard a moose bellowin' up the mountain a few minutes ago."
"Some fresh meat would be good," Caitlyn agreed. "But you better take Dog with you, and the sled."
"Yep, I'll do that. That critter's runnin' around outside somewhere. I'll whistle him up."
Silas headed for his robe by the door, and Caitlyn shaped the final bread loaf, rinsing and wiping her hands as Silas went out the door. As soon as the door closed, Jon scooted his chair back from the table and held out his arms.
"Come here," Jon said softly. "I've been aching to hold you, darlin'."
"Oh, Jon." Caitlyn tossed the linen hand towel on the table and hurried to him.
He pulled her onto his lap and his lips immediately found hers. He kissed her hungrily, greedily, his arms tightening around her until she could hardly catch her breath, and Caitlyn kissed him back just as hungrily. It was impossible to make up for all the so-close, so-far-away frustration they had experienced in the small cabin the past few days in one kiss, but hopefully Silas would be gone for a while. A damned long while.
Silas turned from the window and rubbed his hands together, chuckling under his breath. Almost tiptoeing, he walked a few paces away from the cabin and whistled quietly for Dog. The animal bounded from the trees and raced up to him, tail wagging, and Silas cautiously held a finger to his lips.
"Let's don't make a whole lot of noise out here, critter," he whispered, and Dog sat down in front of him, cocking his head to the side.
"I don't want that little one inside to hear you barking and wake up," Silas explained to Dog's questioning gaze. "Little Sun oughta sleep for at least another hour, lessen he hears you and wants to play with you. We'll just sneak off, and you and me'll have us a nice little huntin' trip."
Inside the cabin, Jon finally released Caitlyn, cupping her face as he gazed down into her eyes.
"God, I love you," he whispered. "I've missed you."
"Missed me?" Caitlyn teased. "We haven't been more than a few feet from each other all week."
"It might as well have been a mile," Jon responded. "Do you realize how beautiful you are in the evenings when you're sitting there reading to us? How the firelight shines in those pretty eyes? How luscious those lips of yours look when you're puzzling out a new word? Hell, I haven't even heard one word you read all week. I've been too occupied with watching you, remembering how it felt when we made love."
Caitlyn traced a finger around his lips. "I love you," she said. "And I wasn't having trouble with any words. Every time I stumbled over my reading, it was because I couldn't concentrate with you staring at me."
Jon captured her hand and gently nipped her finger, then sucked it into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue. At her intake of breath, he released her finger and buried his hands in her hair, seeking her mouth again. Her lips opened willingly to his and he caressed inside her mouth as he had her finger, tasting her, claiming her for his own.
Smoothing his hands down her braid, he untied the ribbon on the end and worked his hands back upward, freeing the glossy strands and spreading them across her back like a raven cape. When he slipped an arm beneath her legs and stood, Caitlyn's hair hung down almost to the floor.
"I want you, darlin'," Jon said, scarcely lifting his mouth from hers to speak. "I need you. Only you, Caitlyn, sweetheart. Caitlyn, my love."
She kissed him for her answer and Jon carried her into her bedroom. Sliding her down his body, he cupped her hips as soon as her feet touched the floor, pulling her against his need, grinding against her stomach. Caitlyn's arms clenched around his neck and pulled at him. Jon bent to slip his hands under her buckskin dress to her hips, lifting her a few inches from the floor and settling himself between her legs.
Caitlyn whimpered in want, instinctively clasping her legs around him. The flames of twin passion and need raced through her, and she rocked with him, all too aware that the buckskin of his trousers kept them from the final joining her body cried for.
Her head fell back, and Caitlyn closed her eyes in frustration. "Please," she cried, sobbing out her yearning. "Please, Jon."
Splaying one hand to hold her, Jon jerked his trousers down and slid into her. She was wet — wet and wanting and wonderfully tight. Her nails bit into his back ever through his shirt and she came immediately, biting her lips to hold back her cries of completion. Sweat beaded Jon's face as he watched her, and his legs trembled with the effort not to join her.
As soon as the quivers of Caitlyn's fulfillment slowed, Jon sat down on her bed, keeping himself joined to her and pulling her dress over her head.
Caitlyn lazily gazed up at him. "I love you," she whispered. Her blue eyes were drugged with receding passion — passion Jon knew exactly how to restore.
He dipped his head and found a turgid nipple. While he sucked, he ran his hands down her legs and pulled her moccasins from her feet. As he kicked his own moccasins and trousers free, his movements drove him deeper inside her. Caitlyn gasped and the silkiness of her surrounding him clasped him tighter, nearly driving him over the edge.
Somehow he held back yet again.
When Jon licked a path to her other nipple and ran his tongue around it, Caitlyn smoothed her hands down the back of his shirt and bunched the fringe in her fingers. She tugged, thrusting her breast deeper into the welcoming mouth. Their bodies penned the shirt between them, and she opened her eyes to try to find a better hold.
Jon's eyes were closed in ecstasy when she gazed down at him, suckling her breast, one callused palm holding and kneading it. She threaded her fingers in his blond hair, then ran her hand up and down his corded neck. His skin was sweat-slick and hot to her touch, and she groaned and tightened her legs around his waist when he sucked her breast deeper into his mouth.
"Your...your shirt," she managed to gasp. "Not fair."
Slowly Jon raised his head, giving a final flick of his tongue on her nipple, which began aching at once with loss.
"My shirt?" he whispered. "You want me naked, too?"
"Yes," Caitlyn admitted with a lazy smile. "I need to touch you — feel you wanting me."
Jon pushed upward. "Feel me?" he whispered when Caitlyn clenched his shoulders. "Can you feel how bad I want you?"
She couldn't answer him this time, and Jon released her to roughly jerk his shirt over his head. Tossing it aside, he placed his hands beside her breasts and pulled her closer. Her nipples touched him, and he rubbed his chest back and forth across them, the pebbled tips tangling with the kinky hair, now curled with the sweat on his body.
One nipple tip brushed the smaller nipple on Jon's chest, and he groaned a choked sound. Cupping his palm around Caitlyn's breast, he guided her nipple back to his own and rubbed them together, back and forth, then in a circular motion. The pleasurable feeling rushed to his groin, and he hardened even larger inside her.
"Caitlyn. Oh, God, Caitlyn, sweetheart. I can't hold back any longer," he muttered, voice deep and guttural with need.
In one swift motion he laid her on the bed. The little whimpers f
rom her throat told him how badly she wanted him, too. Teeth grinding with his effort, he raised himself and stared down at their joined bodies long enough to watch himself pull free, then reenter her — once, then again.
Caitlyn gasped his name and wrapped her legs around his back, and he couldn't see any more. But it didn't matter. He could feel — and he could find her mouth, even with his eyes closed. With a moan of surrender, Jon kissed her, thrusting his tongue inside in time to the dance of their joined bodies.
His release shattered him into pieces, mingled with pieces of Caitlyn — separate, yet the same — made all the more intoxicating by Caitlyn's fall into rapture with him. He carried them both into that culmination of pleasure that swirled around them both for hours — for never-ending days, all the while mumbling love words he didn't know if she could even hear.
He had just enough strength left to gather Caitlyn's limp body into his arms and roll to his side. Holding every delicious inch of her against him, he waited for his heart to cease thundering and the pieces of their bodies to merge back into place.
Several long moments later, Caitlyn's indolent giggle prodded Jon back to consciousness. He slit his eyes and gazed down at her as she patted her hand up his arm, then leaned back an inch or two and smoothed her palm across his chest.
"I just wanted to see if you were all there," she said with a quirk of her kiss-swollen lips. "A minute ago, I could have sworn we were both all broken into pieces."
Jon chuckled quietly and propped his head on his hand. "That's amazing," he murmured. "I felt exactly the same. I better feel you, too, and make sure you got back together all right. I wouldn't want even one tiny part of you out of place."
"Hummm," Caitlyn responded. "Make sure you go over me completely, then. I want all of me to be just right for you."
"Let's see." Jon touched each eye as Caitlyn closed her lids. "Those pretty eyes are there, right where they should be. And your nose." He gently tapped it, then bent his head to kiss her. "Lips are in place, too," he murmured.
When he remained quiet for quite a while, Caitlyn opened her eyes with a sigh to see what he was doing. Her face flushed when she saw his hand lying idle between them, while Jon scanned his eyes over her body.
Biting her lip to control her embarrassment, she propped her head up in imitation of Jon's and began studying every inch of his body in return. The silence in the room lengthened as Caitlyn became caught up her own examination of what there was about his body — so different from her own — that gave her such unparalleled pleasure.
His blond hair felt just as silky to her as her own black locks did when she brushed them out at night. She liked the longer length of his hair — her fingers had more to play with. Dark blond lashed outlined his blue eyes, a near match to her own. Their color changed with his moods, darkening with passion, sparkling lighter when he teased her.
She liked his nose, which was straight and perfectly balanced in his face. Those lips fit exactly right over her own, his mouth not too wide, but wide enough for part of her breast to fit inside. She couldn't see his tongue now, but she didn't need to. It was just the correct size to pleasure her.
Below his corded neck, his shoulders widened to just the proper width to balance the rest of his body, at least twice the breadth of her own slender shoulders. The blond mat of hair on his chest rolled over and around firm muscles that begged her fingers to trace them. But she controlled the urge and studied his arms.
The bicep on the arm holding his head up bulged with negligent strength, and even the arm lying free from strain had cords of power showing, veins running over the muscles. His hand flexed slightly when her eyes fell on it, his long fingers casual now. But they could play over her body in a dance of pleasure, the rough calluses counteracting the softness of her skin in a decidedly enjoyable way.
An amazingly trim waist sat above his hips, and the path of blond chest hair narrowed on his flat stomach. It bushed out once again in a swath, though, a slight shade darker down there. Caitlyn avoided lingering her gaze there for the time being, and studied the muscled thighs, on down his legs.
Teasingly, she measured her small toes against his larger ones, then giggled under her breath.
"What's so funny?" Jon demanded.
"Uh...nothing," Caitlyn denied, the blush renewing on her cheeks. "Nothing."
With a quick movement, Jon pushed her back onto the bed and covered her body with his. "Tell me what's so funny about my toes," he said. "Or else...."
"Or else what?" Caitlyn said with another giggle.
"Are you ticklish?" Jon asked in an ominous voice, running a hand across her ribs.
"Huh uh," Caitlyn denied, but when he wiggled his fingers slightly, her giggle denied the lie.
He tickled her mercilessly for several seconds, and Caitlyn bucked under his body, her laughter flowing unchecked until tears found their way past her tightly closed eyelids.
"Stop," she finally gasped. "Oh, Jon, stop. Please. I...I'll tell you!"
Jon stilled his fingers, but kept them in place on her ribs. When she glanced up at him, a smile hovered on his full lips and his eyes twinkled merrily. He raised his eyebrows as he waited for her to speak.
"I...I heard...oh, Jon, I can't tell you!"
His fingers wiggled and Caitlyn grabbed his hands. "Stop! All right, just stop, please. I'll tell you."
"Well," Jon demanded when she opened her eyes again.
"I...I heard two young Indian girls talking to each other," Caitlyn choked out. "It was at a f...fertility dance one fall."
"What did they say? And what the heck's that got to do with my toes?"
"They...oh, darn. The men...the men danced barefoot, and we could see how long their toes were. The girls said you could measure some...some other part by how long their toes were. There!"
Jon broke up into laughter and buried his face on her neck. When he could speak again, he lifted his head and said, "So you were measuring my toes against my...."
Caitlyn clapped a hand over his mouth. "Hush! I wasn't...I mean...."
Jon pulled her hand away and nudged her legs open with his knee. "You don't have to imagine," he said with a chuckle. "I'll be real glad to show you how big...."
A howl of displeasure sounded in the other room and Jon let out a sigh. "Guess that will have to wait," he growled. "Our other hindrance to making love is awake out there."
"Oh, Jon," Caitlyn said with a gasp. "Where's my dress? Hurry. Get up, before Little Sun crawls out of his bed and comes in here!"
Jon stepped from the bed and swept his trousers up. As he slipped his legs into them, they both heard the crib creak. Chuckling under his breath, Jon grabbed Caitlyn's dress and tossed it to her before he started out the bedroom door.
"I'll get him," he said over his shoulder. "He already knows how much bigger I am than he is."
"So do I," Caitlyn said to herself with a soft laugh as the blanket covering the door fell back into place. "And those girls must have been right."
Stifling her laughter, she pulled her dress over her head and shrugged into it. Rising from the rumpled bed, she pulled her hair free and reached for her brush on the beside table. Instead of taking time to rebraid her hair, she brushed it back and tied it with a new ribbon. Maybe when Little Sun took his afternoon nap, Jon would take that ribbon out, too, and run his hands through her hair. She truly loved feeling his hands in her hair.
When Caitlyn came out into the main room, Jon caught her gaze, his look a mixture of love and promise that their interrupted interlude would continue later.
1
Chapter 22
Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Jon and Little Sun were still occupied, Caitlyn pulled the tray of cookies from the fireplace oven. Neither Jon nor the little boy had seemed aware of the molasses smell permeating the room after the bread had been baked, and she silently slipped the tray onto the table, smiling secretly as she looked forward to their surprise.
She and Mick had always made
cookies for Christmas, with molasses his favorite, though she favored the sugar cookies herself. Mick carved that dough into animal shapes, wielding his huge knife with delicate strokes and poking a hole into every one, so they could hang it on the small pine tree he cut each season. Caitlyn sprinkled the cookies from the precious store of white sugar they saved for the occasion, and she loved watching the diamond-bright sugar sparkles in the evening candle and lantern light.
While the cookies cooled, she stood silently, watching the scene across the room on Jon's bunk.
Little Sun sat on Jon's lap, his eyes bright and inquisitive as he watched the animal shape emerging from the piece of wood Jon held. As Jon carved, he told Little Sun the story of how Caitlyn had ended up with Dog. Neither one of them noticed the wood shavings littering the bunk and floor, Caitlyn realized with a sigh.
She wasn't sure how much Little Sun understood, but he appeared to be taking in Jon's every word. Just then Jon bent his head closer to Little Sun's, though his voice still carried across the room.
"He thought we were married," Jon told the little boy. "Can you imagine that? And do you know what he said then?"
Little Sun solemnly shook his head.
"He said we ought to be," Jon told him, lifting his head and staring across the room at Caitlyn as though fully aware all along that she, too, was listening to every word. "And you know what else?"
Caitlyn couldn't tear her eyes from Jon's and her breath caught in her throat. She let it out in an exasperated whoosh when Jon bent his head again and whispered in Little Sun's ear. Try as she might, she couldn't hear what he said.
When Jon looked back at her, Little Sun bounced around to see her, too. Clapping his pudgy hands together, he called, "Yite. Yite."
The question came out before Caitlyn could stop it. "What did you say to him?"
"It's a secret," Jon informed her with a saucy grin. "Couldn't you tell? I whispered it because it's a secret between Little Sun and me."
Caitlyn resisted the twinkling glint in Jon's eyes, which reminded her of sugar cookie sparkles, by dropping her own gaze to the tray on the table. "Well," she mused. "I think it's rude to whisper secrets in front of another person. And rude people sure don't deserve any of the molasses cookies I just baked."
Mountain Magic Page 22
