Comanche Woman

by Joan Johnston

  “Someone has to take the first steps toward peace. Why not a son of ours?”

  Long Quiet opened his mouth to argue, then realized what Bay had said. He’d lost the battle, but won the war. “A son of ours. That has a good sound. I like it.”

  Bay was shocked to realize their conversation had led her to think of their children as though they were a possibility, even a reality.

  “Come,” Long Quiet said. “Night is upon us.”

  Bay walked beside Long Quiet as though in a trance. Her life had turned onto a new path and she wondered what awaited her along the way. When they reached the creek again she stopped to pick up the kettle, but he took it from her hands. The gesture of a white man, she thought, from one who’d just defended the Indian ways. She smiled, but said nothing.

  When they arrived at their tipi, Bay took a deep breath and asked, “May I have some time alone to . . . to prepare myself?”

  “As you wish. I will see to the welfare of my pony and then return.”

  Bay watched Long Quiet as he walked away from her. He moved with grace, his muscular body lithe. She shivered at the thought of his hard, muscular flesh pressed against her own. But the fear she’d expected to rise within her didn’t come. Sometime in the past few minutes, Long Quiet had replaced her apprehension with expectation.

  Bay spread the buffalo robe across the dirt floor and plumped the rabbit fur pillows, thinking what it would mean to lay her head next to Long Quiet’s for the long years ahead. Would she feel more of the tingling feelings she’d experienced when they kissed? Would he be gentle with her?

  Her thoughts went around and around as she left the tipi to make arrangements for Little Deer’s care. When she returned, she built a small fire and prepared a dinner for Long Quiet. Her nervousness increased as time passed and he didn’t return. She jumped when the tipi flap finally lifted and Long Quiet stepped inside.

  Bay’s instincts told her to flee, and she began to struggle to her feet, held back by the fringes of her poncho, which had tangled beneath her knees.

  “You need not rise,” Long Quiet said, misunderstanding her attempt to stand. He crossed quickly and sat down beside her.

  Bay froze.

  Long Quiet’s hand reached out to the small metal pot of food warming on the fire. He dipped a finger in and tasted. “It’s good.”

  “It’s ready whenever you’re hungry,” Bay managed to say.

  “I’m hungry now. Shall we eat?”

  “If you wish.”

  Bay served portions of the venison stew to both of them in carved bowls. She sat as far away from Long Quiet as possible and ate her food as slowly as she could, to postpone what she was certain would follow.

  Despite her efforts to appear calm, Long Quiet was aware of Bay’s nervousness. He sought a subject on which they could talk that would ease her time with him.

  “Where is Little Deer?”

  “I thought it better she stay with Cries at Night for tonight . . . I mean if we . . . that is . . . she wouldn’t be . . .”

  Long Quiet searched for another safe topic and said, “Cries at Night said she had enough rabbit skins with the two I caught today to make a pillow to replace the one she gave away.”

  “I didn’t know you needed a pillow,” she said.

  “It’s for both of us to share.”

  Bay flushed. “Oh.”

  Long Quiet recognized the futility of his efforts. There was no safe subject for them to speak of tonight. What was to come was too much on their minds.

  “Come here to me, Shadow.”

  “My name is Bay.”

  “Bay was the name given to the daughter of Rip Stewart. Shadow is a good name for a Comanche wife. Come here to me, Shadow.”

  “Please . . .”

  “Come.”

  Bay dared not disobey the command. She stood and walked the few steps that separated her from Long Quiet. She couldn’t bring herself to sit down again.

  Long Quiet reached out a hand and twined his fingers with hers, gently tugging on her hand until she was on her knees before him.

  Bay was unprepared for the gentleness of his touch. She quivered as his callused thumb traced its way across her cheekbone and then down to her mouth.

  “Look at me.”

  Bay couldn’t.

  He tipped her chin up and she found herself staring into his gray eyes.

  “I wish only to share with you the pleasures of a man and woman becoming one.”

  He took the hand that had been entwined with his and brought it to his chest. “I am only flesh and blood, like you.”

  His muscles tensed beneath her touch.

  “Your touch pleases me,” he murmured. His other hand captured her nape and his mouth came down to meet with hers, their lips barely touching.

  Bay tried to withdraw her hand from his chest, but he kept it there until her fingers began to move on their own across his smooth, sweat-slick skin.

  Bay was frightened of the feelings that flickered to life inside her. She ached and didn’t know why. She needed but didn’t know what. She held back the sob that threatened to erupt, uncertain how long his patience with her would last and unwilling to test him so soon.

  When she opened her mouth to protest, his tongue sought welcome there. The sensations were shocking, but she couldn’t find the will to resist. He caressed the honeyed treasure of her mouth with lips and teeth and tongue.

  Unconsciously, Bay’s hands roamed his chest. He jerked when she skimmed a male nipple.

  “Should I not touch you there?”

  “You can touch me anywhere it pleases you to touch.”

  “But you—”

  He grasped her jaw in his hand and turned her face up to his at the same time his hand skimmed across her nipple. She jerked, and he raised his brow.

  She smiled as understanding rose. “Oh, my. And it feels the same for you?”

  “Yes. The same.”

  Her thumb brushed his nipple again, and she watched as his nostrils flared and his eyes ate her with hungry glances. Simply touching his skin intensified the ache inside her. She was instantly aware when Long Quiet’s hand caressed the bare skin of her midriff. Her hands stopped where they were, and she pulled away from him. She looked down at his hand, then back into his gray eyes, dark now with desire.

  He continued his seduction, all the while searching her face with his eyes. “You are still wary of my touch?”

  “A little,” she admitted.

  “But it pleases you.”

  Bay started to shake her head, but his hand reached up to cup her breast and she gasped.

  “It is good we make each other tremble with need,” he said, his voice husky and low.

  She was startled by the warrior’s admission that she could make him tremble, but she could feel from the hand caressing her breast that he spoke truthfully. That this fierce warrior allowed her to see him shaking with need made him infinitely less threatening.

  “Don’t let the other braves see you like this,” she gently teased. “Think what they’d say.”

  “They would say I am but a man,” he replied, “and richly deserving of such a fate.”

  His smile faded as he added, “I would have it no other way.”

  He released Bay long enough to pull her buckskin poncho off over her head. When his fingers sought out the tie on her skirt, her hands met him there.

  “I will see all of you,” he said. When she resisted his efforts, he added, “It is my right . . . and I have already seen you many times before.”

  This is different, Bay thought. But her hands fell away.

  “Stand up,” he instructed.

  As she stood, he eased the skirt down the length of her body, baring it a little at a time, his senses inflamed by what he found. “You are very beautiful, Shadow.”

  Bay stared straight ahead, pleased by what he’d said but at the same time embarrassed by his lingering gaze. She expected him to lay her down and take what he wanted. Instead,
he rose to stand before her. Before she realized what he intended, he’d released his breechclout.

  Despite all they’d shared so far, despite the fact she knew rationally he wouldn’t hurt her and that there was no rescue outside the tipi, Bay whirled to flee. She was caught before she’d taken two steps, crushed by strong arms that drew her into Long Quiet’s embrace. She whimpered in fear, struggling against her inexorable fate.

  “Shhh,” he soothed. He turned her in his arms, bringing her breasts into the hard pillow of his chest, her belly into the cradle of his hips.

  Bay moaned at the feel of his hardness against her softness. It felt good. It felt so good. There was no danger, nothing to fear here, only the welcome of home.

  Long Quiet smoothed the hair back from Bay’s forehead with his hand, then let his lips caress her temple, her eyelids, and finally her mouth. His tongue delved into that sweet cavern as his hands brought her belly hard against his need. His tongue mimed the dance of love he’d waited so many years to have with this woman. His mouth trailed down to the jumping pulse at her throat, then to the crest of her breast.

  Bay’s hips tilted into Long Quiet’s in a purely instinctive reaction as her back arched to bring her breasts up to his searching mouth. Her hands clutched his back, her fingernails drawing crescents in the warm golden skin.

  Long Quiet took the pebbled tip of her breast into his mouth, tongued it, suckled it, nipped it with his teeth.

  The sensations shot from Bay’s nipple straight to her belly, tightening like a wire between them, causing her to jerk her hips up toward Long Quiet’s aroused manhood.

  His head came up suddenly as he grasped her rounded buttocks with one hand and held her still.

  Bay’s head was thrown back over Long Quiet’s arm, her mouth open, her eyes closed to concentrate all her attention on the delicious feelings racing through her. She tried to rub her belly against him, seeking the erotic sensations that had stopped when he’d stilled her against him.

  Slowly, her eyes opened and Long Quiet’s face came into focus. He was breathing heavily, and his facial muscles were taut. Her actions of the past few moments came flooding back to Bay in an instant, her face flushing with the horror of what she’d done.

  She’d forgotten all about Jonas. How insidious was this emotion called desire! She couldn’t desire Long Quiet. She hardly knew him. She certainly didn’t love him. She loved Jonas.

  “Don’t,” Long Quiet said. “Don’t regret what’s happening between us. It’s good. It’s—”

  “Jooonaaas,” she moaned.

  Long Quiet’s mouth came down brutally to cut off the hated name. She was his. Another man had no place in her head or her heart. In an instant he had her down upon the buffalo robe that served as his bed.

  Gone was the gentle man who’d wooed her. Gone was the patience he’d shown earlier. Bay hardly recognized the man whose weight held her down. His thighs spread her legs apart while his large hand pinned her wrists above her head.

  “Don’t do this,” she pleaded.

  “I will put my seed in you and make a child that will be a part of both of us. Perhaps then you will realize that from this moment, forever, you are mine.”

  His hand came down between them, parting her nether lips. She tensed at this intrusion where no man had been before.

  He slipped a finger inside her, finding her small and tight and slickly wet. His thumb searched, found what it sought, and applied pressure that caused Bay to buck her hips against him despite her desire to show him no response. “What are you . . . aaaah!”

  Long Quiet lowered his head to her breasts, sucking and teasing, even as his hand continued to tease her woman’s place.

  Bay heard a groan and wondered who had made that wrenching sound. Her breasts arched up as her body begged Long Quiet to take more of her breast into his mouth. Her hips bucked, begging him to delve deeper with his hands. The groaning was constant now, cries and gasps and pleas that made no sense to her but were music to the ears of the man who was the cause of her distress.

  Long Quiet felt Bay’s body tensing, felt her desire cresting and, releasing her hands, grasped her buttocks and tilted her so she could more easily receive him. He placed himself at the entrance to her, dipping himself into the lover’s dew that told him her delicate petals had flowered for him. Then he thrust inside her. He was past the obstruction before he realized it was there. Shock stopped him where he was.

  Bay’s dazed, pain-filled eyes opened, and she met Long Quiet’s look of confusion.

  “You were untouched,” he said.

  “Of course.” Bay didn’t understand his anger. What had she done? What was wrong?

  “The child,” he rasped. “Who does the child belong to?”

  “She’s mine.”

  Long Quiet’s hand grasped her hair and yanked her head back. She arched up into his chest to avoid the pain. “The truth!” he demanded.

  “She’s mine,” Bay persisted.

  “Who carried the child? Who bore her?” He yanked her head back until she thought her neck might snap.

  “Buffalo Woman, the first wife of Many Horses,” she admitted as the pain became unbearable.

  The tension eased on her scalp, but his full weight still rested on her chest. “I can’t breathe,” she said.

  He released her hair, and she laid her head back down. He took his weight on his palms, which were placed on either side of her head, but he kept his hips hard against hers. It was then she realized he was still deep inside her, filling her full.

  He began to move slowly in and out.

  Bay gasped at the intense pleasure. Her eyes locked with Long Quiet’s, her mouth open for a protest that didn’t come.

  His thrusts were powerful, reaching inside her, and the spiraling tension that had abated during his interrogation built again, more swiftly this time. Her eyelids sank closed as her body melted beneath the warmth of the man above her. Her back bowed, her hips thrust upward to meet him, quiver to arrow, sheath to knife, as her body demanded he end the war between them and bring them both peace.

  His mouth covered hers to silence the frenzied groans that escaped, as the pleasure became so intense it bordered on pain. Then she was no longer conscious of him at all, only of the need to reach beyond herself for something that eluded her. She twisted her hips against his, ground her breasts against his chest, pulled his lips down to hers and sought out his tongue, sucking it into her mouth.

  Suddenly her body shuddered. Her soul shattered. She clung to Long Quiet, only vaguely aware that he was shuddering too, as his body released his seed inside her.

  It was long moments before Bay had a coherent thought, and when it came, it was painful. Her body had betrayed the man she’d loved all these years. It had responded to Long Quiet’s loving with joyful abandon. And she had no doubt it would do so again . . . and again. Until she would have the child Long Quiet had promised her.

  Her heart tucked her first love away in a safe place, where it would not be forgotten . . . or ripped out by the volcanic emotions Long Quiet had elicited from her with his hands and mouth and body. Her heart would always save a small corner for . . .

  “Jonas,” she whispered, unaware she’d spoken aloud.

  Long Quiet was glad of the darkness, because he wouldn’t have wanted Bay to see the desolation he felt at the sound of the other man’s name. She had given him such great pleasure. Her own pleasure had been great as well. He’d known enough to be sure of that, and he was glad of it. She would forget the other man. Surely when she was heavy with his child, her heart would gentle toward its father.

  His hand smoothed the hair from her brow where it curled, damp with sweat. “Go to sleep, Shadow.”

  A wolf howled in the distance, but the ululating cry spoke more of pain than of loneliness. Bay rose on her elbow and listened to the echoing wail. When she started to rise, Long Quiet pulled her back down into his embrace. “Where do you go?”

  “The wolf is suffering. P
erhaps he’s caught in a trap.”

  “If so, he will be out of his misery soon enough.”

  Bay knew what that meant. A wolf made strong medicine. If found in a trap, it would be killed. She couldn’t save herself, but perhaps tomorrow she could save the suffering animal. Bay worried whether she would be able to free the beast before it was discovered. As her eyes closed in sleep, it was she who was caught in the snare and Long Quiet who reached out to free her. She snarled at him, teeth bared and hackles raised. But he wasn’t afraid. His voice calmed her, and his touch felt good upon her back. Bay arched beneath the taming touch and groaned her pleasure.

  Long Quiet’s hand caressed the sleeping woman. She was an enigma. He didn’t have to understand her, though, to know he loved her. No man had touched her as he had tonight. No man ever would.

  He would never give her back to Jonas Harper.

  Chapter 11

  BAY HAD AWAKENED NOT LONG AFTER LONG QUIET HAD fallen asleep, then shifted restlessly, unable to shut out the wolf’s mournful howl, equally unable to ignore the warmth of her new husband’s body beside her. She wasn’t sure which of the two had kept her wider awake, but her red-rimmed eyes burned from peering into the darkness all night. She’d tried once to leave Long Quiet’s side, but even in his sleep he’d clung to her, his arm draped heavily across her waist and his legs, ticklish with curly black hair, intertwined with hers.

  Bay had tried to focus on the wolf’s plight because she thought that when dawn came she might be able to do something to ease it. She was less optimistic about escape from the trap in which she found herself. She should have told Long Quiet sooner that she hadn’t borne Little Deer. Well, she hadn’t actually lied to him, had she? But you didn’t tell him the truth, either. In light of his response of outraged betrayal, Bay was sorry for that. And worried.

  Her heart ached at the thought of leaving the child she’d grown to love in order to follow her husband wherever he chose to take her. And where would that be? She had no idea where he made his home. She tried to imagine a log cabin somewhere in Texas, but couldn’t picture it as well as a buffalo-hide tipi somewhere in Comanchería. Not that living in either place with Long Quiet would be such a horrible fate.