by Merry Farmer
She had planned to take comfort in the heat of his familiar body, but she hadn’t figured on his touch nearly setting her aflame. Burns With Fire indeed. His hand hovered where it was, but she could feel the tension rolling off of him as he debated whether to inch that hand up to her breasts or down to even more tempting places. It would have been second nature to bat him away, to elbow him in the gut and make some sort of joke. Then he would laugh and tease her, and they would move on as they always had.
With a shock that pierced straight to her heart, she realized she didn’t want to move on the way things had always been. She wanted more, so much more.
She twisted under his arm until she lay with her chest and belly pressed against the hard breadth of his torso. He tugged her close, as if the two of them were made to be one with each other.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
He grinned in the faint starlight, but it was the spark deep in his eyes that caught her. “I’m the same man I’ve always been,” he answered. “The same man who has always been there with you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe that you are. The man I’ve known all this time is bright and teasing. He’s a rogue who is full of himself and doesn’t give me a moment’s peace.”
Aiden’s smile slipped. “Is that how you’ve seen me all this time?”
She shrugged, the motion rubbing their bodies against each other, creating a delicious friction that reached to her core. She had to fight the urge to slide her leg up over his. “You’ve never given me a chance to see you as anyone else.”
His brown knit in confusion. He brushed a lock of her hair back from her face. “I’ve loved you as long as I can remember, Katie Boyle.”
“And I’ve known that for as long as I can remember,” she answered. “That man was charming and clever and amusing to be around, but he made it hard for me to breathe. He gave me no chance to love him on my own.”
He brushed his fingertips across her cheek and jaw, cradling her face and inching into her to steal a light kiss. “I’m sorry. I was doing what I thought was right.”
“I know,” she answered. For once she didn’t want to beat against him and push him away. For once she wanted to draw him closer. “The harder you pushed, the more I wanted to push back. But all this time at the Cheyenne village, when we’ve been away from everything we know, lost and in trouble, for the first time you made me feel not only that you love me, but that you trust me too.”
“I’ve always trusted you.” He smoothed his fingertips across the curve of her neck and brushed his hand along her arm.
She shook her head. “I don’t think you have. I think that you’ve been afraid that the moment you turned your back on me, I’d run.”
“I didn’t—” He stopped, closed his mouth, and breathed out through his nose. His hand tensed on her arm. “Maybe I did,” he said, as if surprised to consider it.
“But I wouldn’t have, Aiden,” she said, surprised herself. “I’ve always wanted to explore, to fly, to soar, but whether I’ve wanted to or not, every time I imagined the adventures I’d have, you were always there with me.”
“Katie,” he spoke her name as though it was a wish and a prayer.
“You came to America because you said you couldn’t have lived without me, but the only reason I actually went through with leaving and convinced both of our families to go was because I knew you would come too. You may not be able to live without me, but I don’t think I could live without you either.”
The full truth of those words hit her as she spoke them, taking her breath away. She loved Aiden, loved him so much and for so long that he had become as much a part of her as her eyes, her breath, her heart. It wasn’t until she had come close to losing him, close to ending up in another man’s arms, that she realized how much he meant to her.
There were no more words to describe how she felt. She closed her arm around his lower back and surged into him, finding his mouth in the dark. He let out a long sigh as she kissed him, teasing his lips apart with her tongue. Everything she knew about kissing she had learned from him and from her heart. She nipped at his lower lip, sliding her tongue against his. The sensation of his body relaxing into hers made her bolder. She angled her kiss to explore him more deeply, giving herself to him and drinking him in return.
“A ghrá,” he moaned against her hungry mouth. “I love you.”
“And I love you,” she answered him. She loved him with her heart, with her mind, and with every fiber of her body.
He twisted to rest her on her back, shifting the balance between them and pouring his passion into their kiss. It was his turn to explore, to taste her lips, her chin, her cheek. He nuzzled her neck, raining tiny kisses along the line of her pulse, then stroking his tongue across her sensitive skin. Every touch echoed wildly in her core, pooling light and heat in the center of her. That was the part of her that burned with fire—fire for him.
As if he could hear the intensity of her thoughts, he reached for the hem of her soft wedding tunic with his free hand, bunching it and drawing it up. Yes. That was what she wanted. Mad though it made her, she wanted him to pull the beautiful garment right off of her. She wanted to feel the cool night air on her bare skin, his hands on her. She wanted to inch her legs apart so that he could see and touch that most intimate part of her. The wild wantonness of that thought made her laugh out loud.
“What is it?” he laughed right along with her, voice hoarse and heavy.
“Take off my clothes, Aiden,” she ordered him. “I want to lie naked under you in the starlight.”
His answering laugh was filled with surprise and desire. “You’re in luck, a ghrá,” he said, shifting to brace himself with his knees on either side of her, pushing the wedding tunic up over her hips. “Right now I can’t think of anything I’d rather look at than you.”
Reason told her what they were doing was wrong. Everything else—from her heart to her soul to her body—told her it was right. She lifted her hips so Aiden could draw the tunic up farther, then arched her back and helped him tug it straight up over her shoulders and head. He tossed it aside and she lay down, her fiery hair spreading, her arms above her head.
Aiden sucked in a breath above her, which only made her burn hotter. Cheyenne women didn’t wear much beneath their tunic dresses. The leggings only came up just above her knees. The rest of her body, from her thighs to the tips of her fingers tangling in her hair above her head, was laid bare to him. She watched the wonder in his eyes as he drank in the sight of her pale skin, of her coral-tipped breasts and the thatch of curls between her legs. Every inch of her pulsed for him, ached for his touch. She could hardly keep still with the force of her desire. She let her knees fall to the side, giving him an even better view of the heat between her legs.
“You’re so… I want….” Aiden stumbled over his words, his eyes roving her the way she wanted his hands and his mouth to. At last he whispered, “A ghrá.”
With one swift motion, he tugged the Cheyenne tunic he wore up over his head and dropped it. His broad chest, with just a hint of dark hair, caught the faint starlight. The firm muscles of his stomach and abdomen stood out, tense and ready. It was all Katie could do not to reach out and run her hands over the body that she had known so well, and yet not at all, for so many years. He didn’t stop there. He unfastened the leather breach clout around his waist and freed his erection.
It was Katie’s turn to catch her breath. The sight of that hard, male part of him—thick, and beautiful, and standing straight up—sent chills of passion through her. That she had never seen him naked before was one thing. Seeing his full length engorged with desire now was another. It drove her wild.
“Saints above, I want you, Aiden Murphy,” she panted, reaching for him.
“Not as much as I want you.”
Even now, he was arguing with her. She would have argued right back, but he lowered himself over top of her as if sinking into the dew-kissed grass of spring. He wedg
ed his legs between hers, and at last she was able to open as wide as she wanted to him. A savage cry of pleasure burst from her as he stroked himself against that hot and hungry part of her. He teased her with his grinding, heating her core until her mind went fuzzy with desire.
He kissed her again, closing a hand around her breast, brushing his thumb over her nipple until it was pert and aching. Then he trailed kisses across her throat and shoulder until he captured that nipple in his hot mouth. He sucked and swirled his tongue around her until she whimpered with the pure pleasure of it. How could she have held herself at arm’s length from this for so long?
“I can’t take it,” she panted, every part of her on fire, begging for release. “Please, Aiden.”
His answering laugh, so deep in his throat and chest that she felt it, only pushed her further. He left her breast, lifting himself above her so that their bodies only just brushed. “I love you when you’re strong and fiery, a ghrá. I love your fight and your independence. But right now, I love you stretched and splayed beneath me, carried away by desire.”
“Aiden.” She poured her longing and her frustration, the wild ache and the need to have him finish what they’d started, into that one word. Heaven help her, but she would lie passive and spread-eagle for him if he would just consummate what they had waited their whole lives for.
In answer to her silent plea, his hands went back to work. He traced his fingers over the trembling flesh of her abdomen, slipping between her woman’s curls. She gasped as he brushed over the nub of her pleasure. “Yes,” she panted. “There.”
He answered her with a growl, his fingers seeking farther, teasing her heated folds. “I knew you’d be this wet for me.”
It was a shamefully arrogant thing to say, and yet it only made her want him more. His fingers played with her for a moment, and then he thrust a finger inside of her. She let out the breath she’d been holding on a moan, then sucked in another as he inserted a second finger with the first. The pressure of him stretching her, making her ready, was new and delicious. It was too much.
She raked her hands down his tense sides until she found the spear of his masculinity, hard and pulsing between them. When she closed her hands around him, testing her palm along his length, he growled. She felt something wild uncoil within him as he rocked into her hands a few times. Power pulsed through her. She had the power to take him outside of himself.
As if to prove her right, he withdrew his fingers from her and shifted above her, pulling himself out of her grasp. He took himself with one hand and repositioned himself at her entrance, then thrust. He was hard and demanding. She cried out in time to his thrust and the next one and the next one and the next one. He knew her, knew what she wanted, before she could form it into thoughts. She wanted him bold and unfettered, driving into her with the force not of two secret lovers joining for the first time, but of two storms crashing into each other at last. The harder he thrust, the louder her cries for him grew and the deeper her pleasure swept her.
He swept her right over the edge with a blast that left her core pulsing with power and her body tingling. It was absolute bliss, wave after wave of pure pleasure. Her inner muscles gripped him as his thrusts reached their pitch. Before she had fully rode out the waves of her pleasure, he cried out above her, his body going tense in her arms for a moment. His hips slammed into hers a few more times before the energy drained quickly from him.
When he collapsed on top of her, Katie embraced him with her arms and legs. She didn’t care how heavy or hot or sweaty he was. This was what she was made for. This was what she had waited for her entire life. She was together with him; they were one in body and soul, somehow, after all this time. Magic had indeed happened that night.
Chapter Nineteen
After all this time, after loving her for as long as he could remember, at last, Katie was his. Aiden hugged her close, her naked back to his chest, as he came slowly out of sleep. Soft morning sunlight filtered through the leaves of the bushes that made up their shelter. Katie still slumbered. He kissed her shoulder and she stirred, drawing in a long, satisfied breath. Her body writhing against his as she stretched shot renewed desire straight through him, making him hard.
Katie hummed, grinding her hips against his length, and Aiden groaned before he could stop himself. Katie, his Katie, giggled.
“Good morning to you too, Aiden Murphy,” she said. Her voice was full of love and teasing, desire and humor. He had never loved her more.
She twisted to face him, grimacing as she did. He kissed her as soon as her lips were close enough to catch, but her wince made him aware of just how uncomfortable their position was. The ground beneath them was uneven, with rocks and sticks that poked. He’d been too exhausted to notice as he slept, and the two of them had been too carried away to care in the deep of the night. Much too carried away.
He brushed a lock of hair back from her face. “Can you forgive me, a ghrá?” he asked.
She blinked, her eyes going wide in disbelief. “Forgive you?”
“For losing myself in you last night,” he said. “For not waiting until we found a priest and did it good and proper.”
Her joyful laughter in answer filled him with heat and energy. “Aiden, you of all people should know that I would never let you push me into something I would regret later. I wanted you as much as you wanted me. I still do.”
She arched a teasing eyebrow and bit her lip. The expression drove him wild. Never loved her more? Every day he woke with her in his arms he would love her twice as much as the day before. He surged into her, closing his arms around her in spite of their awkward position and discomfort, and kissed her from the bottom of his heart. They were meant to be together, from their first days to their last.
Aiden rolled Katie to her back, balancing himself carefully over top of her, and dipped down to kiss her for all he was worth—when his stomach growled. Katie burst into laughter that shook her body temptingly under his at the sound.
“As much as I would love to make love to you again, all day,” she said, placing her arms between them, “you’re hungry, I’m sore and hungry, and we need to keep moving.”
She was right. In so many ways, she was right. Tearing himself away from her to kneel above her was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He brushed his hands through his matted hair. Katie muscled herself to sit in front of him. He still wore the Cheyenne breeches, but they hid nothing where it counted. Her eyes grazed appreciatively over his naked body, his staff erect and aching for her.
“Now that’s a sight a girl could get used to seeing in the mornings,” she said, her brogue more pronounced than usual.
She licked her lips, and for one beautiful, dangerous moment, he thought she might inch closer and explore him like the adventurer she was. The thought didn’t help his rioting senses to calm, not one bit. Then again, the sight of her body, lithe and round, as she stood, stretched, and looked around, was enough to make him want to discover every pleasure spot and sensitive place on her.
“We’d better get cleaned up,” she laughed, turning and stepping over to the small stream that flowed a few yards away.
Their horses had wandered to the stream as well to have a drink. Aiden was amazed and grateful that they hadn’t run back to the Cheyenne village after they had failed to tie them up for the night.
The spell of desire was broken by practicality, especially when Aiden’s stomach growled again. They went to the stream and washed off as much of the dirt that they’d gathered in their passion-fueled rolling under the bush as they could. The cold water also helped Aiden to put his mind back where it needed to be. They still had no idea where they were and needed to find their way to some sort of civilization. He dressed in his Cheyenne clothes and found some corn cakes and dried meat in the sack Magpie Woman had given them. As he ate, he stared out at the horizon.
“Which way should we go?” Katie asked him. She had dressed as well. In the daylight, he could appreciate the fine work
manship of the Cheyenne wedding tunic she wore. A soul-deep smile spread across his face. When she turned to him for an answer, Katie saw it and blinked, smiling herself. “What are you looking at?”
“You,” he said. “You. Always you. You’re beautiful in every way.”
A delicious blush spread across her cheeks. She stepped over to him and stood on her toes to press a light kiss to his lips. “You’re not so bad yourself, Aiden Murphy.”
He laughed, sliding an arm around her waist. “Finally. After more than twenty-five years, finally I hear those words.”
“Well, if you’d told me how beautiful I was before, maybe you would have heard them sooner.” She poked him in the stomach.
“I told you how beautiful you were all the time,” he argued, his heart light. Everything had changed between them, their lives had come together in so many ways, and yet at the same time, she was still Katie. She always would be.
“Really?” She blinked innocently. “I don’t remember you telling me I was beautiful. Not once.”
He laughed and kissed her forehead, then turned his attention back to the land around them.
“I suppose we should head west,” he said. “That’s where we were heading anyhow.”
They packed up the few things that they’d taken out of Magpie Woman’s sack and mounted their horses. It was no easier to ride bareback this time than it had been the night before. Aiden worked to get the feel for it as they traveled on over hills and valleys. He was more concerned for Katie than he was for himself.
Her face was pinched in concentration as they walked on, and her hands were fisted in her horse’s mane. Aiden figured she was probably sorer than he was. That was his fault. He promised himself he wouldn’t repeat their shenanigans of the night before, but after riding all day and finding nothing but open land, when they stopped in the evening and made camp in a small grove of trees and softer grass, they were right back at it, more vigorous than before, and it was glorious.
Waking up to their second day of being lost in the wilderness, however, replaced the excitement they had found in each other’s arms with worry.
