A momentary feeling of unreality swam through Jolena's dizzied head, as though the whole thing had never happened.
Then she seemed to come out of her frozen reverie when she saw Spotted Eagle throw his bow aside and begin running toward her.
Feeling so much more than simple gratitude for Spotted Eagle, Jolena began running toward him. When she reached him, she flung herself into his embrace, clinging to him with all of her might, sobbing.
Her nightmarish experience fled from her mind, and her wonderful dreams came to life as their lips met and they were suddenly kissing passionately, reveling in feelings long denied them.
Spotted Eagle's lips trembled into Jolena's as he felt her body soften in his arms, her lips warm and sensual against his. In his heart she had always been his, but tonight it was all too realthe way he held her, the kiss, the shared passion.
Soon Spotted Eagle had swept her up into his arms and was carrying her away from the death scene. When they reached a place of moonlight and shadows, far from the camp and the dead animal, he placed Jolena on her feet.
Again he drew her into his embrace and kissed her, the air seeming to quiver with the intensity of their feelings for one another.
Jolena gasped with a dizzying pleasure when Spotted Eagle slid his hands under her blouse and felt the warm weight of her breasts. Her insides melted as he caressed her breasts, hardly even aware that he was leaning over her, gently laying her on the ground.
The grass now a soft cushion beneath her, Jolena closed her eyes and enjoyed and accepted the feel of one of Spotted Eagle's warm hands as he crept it beneath her skirt. She trembled as he slid his fingers slowly upward, setting small fires everywhere his flesh touched hers.
He kissed her gasp of surprise away when he lowered her undergarment, then slipped completely away from her and tossed it aside. She lay perfectly still, scarcely breathing, filled with the wonder of these rapturous feelings that were overwhelming her as once again his fingers crept up her leg, then cupped the soft, downy patch of hair at the juncture of her thighs.
Jolena's heart raced, and she trembled with an acute pleasure when his fingers began skillfully caressing the center of her passion. Jolena had never been aware that this part of her anatomy could give her such pleasure. In her midnight dreams of this handsome Indian, she had felt strangely hot and wet where he was now touching and caressing her, but never had she explored these feelings with her own fingers. When she had awakened, the heat and the wetness had been gone, only a part of her sensual dreams and fantasies.
But now the wonderful feelings were building into something sweet, almost unimaginable in the keen pleasure they roused.
Her breath came in short gasps, and then she lurched and opened her eyes wildly when one of his fingers was suddenly thrust inside her, causing her a momentary, brief sense of pain, where she had only moments ago been feeling such pleasure.
Spotted Eagle drew his lips away, yet he did not offer to withdraw his finger.
''You are a virgin," Spotted Eagle whispered. "Do you still wish to be? Or does your heart cry out to know the feelings of a woman?"
Her heart was throbbing so that Jolena could hardly think. The longer his finger remained where her heart seemed to be centered, moving softly within her, awakening new desires throughout her, she did not know what to say or how to react to the delicious lethargy he was causing within her heart and mind.
Spotted Eagle seemed to understand her silence. She was new to this world of sensuality, and not to disappoint her, he crushed her lips with a fiery kiss, his full hand now caressing her love mound which had grown moist against his palm.
Having hungered for her so long, Spotted Eagle was finding it hard to control his own wild desires.
But he could not rush this fierce hunger that was eating away at him, spreading, spreading…
He wanted Jolena to feel every aspect of the ecstasy that he was feeding her. And by the way she was returning his kiss and was clinging to him, he knew that she wished for more of the same.
Close to the height of euphoria that he was seeking, yet finding it dangerous to bring it to the surface with Jolena too soon, Spotted Eagle leaned away from her. Without further words or questions as to whether or not she wished for the same as hefor he already knew the answers by the way she responded to his foreplayhe placed his fingers at the hem of her blouse and slowly lifted it away from her and over her head.
As the moonlight shimmered along the soft and smooth contours of her body, his eyes traced the shape of her firm young breasts. He could not help himself. He leaned down over her and enfolded one of her breasts between his hands and flicked his tongue over its nipple.
His insides quavered; he had never touched or tasted anything as soft and sweet.
He moved his hands to her other breast and did the same there, aware that she was enjoying this by the way she moaned sweetly, then reached a hand to the back of his head and twined her fingers through his hair. Jolena felt as though she were floating, and all doubts of whether she should allow all of this to happen were washed away as though on moonbeams soaring through space. She closed her eyes and tossed her head slowly back and forth, thrilled that he loved her so much already, as she had known that she loved him just as quickly.
They were becoming as one.
Whether or not it should be happening, she knew that all of their tomorrows were now linked, forever and ever.
She smiled secretly at this thought and relaxed, the anticipation of what else was to transpire tonight between them before the lovemaking was complete causing a headiness to claim her.
So caught up in her feelings was she that Jolena seemed hardly aware of when Spotted Eagle had fully unclothed her and was unclothed himself. As he stood over her to toss his final piece of clothing aside, she gazed up at him, admiring his wide shoulders, muscled chest, and the lean lines of his torso.
Her pulse raced as her gaze lowered and she saw the magnificence of his manhood. Although a part of her feared it, since he was so well proportioned, she reached her arms out to him, sighing as he came to her, wrapping her in the warmth of his body.
Spotted Eagle's eyes swept over her face with a silent, urgent message; then he held it within his hands and kissed her with a fierce, possessive heat.
Jolena gave herself up to the rapture. When one of his hands slipped down and covered a breast, rolling her nipple with his fingers, soft moans repeatedly surfaced from inside her.
She kissed him with quavering lips and clung to him, her pulse racing maddeningly as she felt his throbbing manhood as it began probing at the center of her desire.
As though practiced, yet truly from instinct instilled in a woman from the time Eve lured Adam into her arms in the garden of Eden, she spread her legs, opening herself more widely
to him, an open invitation for him to do what he pleased, and what she now hungered for.
When he thrust himself deeply inside her, Jolena whimpered against his lips with pain. But the pain was soon replaced with something wonderfully sweet and sensual. She drew a ragged breath as a raging hunger swept through her.
Spotted Eagle slipped his mouth down from her lips and showered her breasts with feathery kisses. His heart hammered wildly within his chest, his body growing more feverish as the pleasure mounted.
His hands moved down her body until they were cupping her buttocks in a sensual ecstasy of their own. He forced her hips in at his, crushing her against him, her buttocks smooth and as soft as cotton as she strained into him.
Their naked flesh was fused. It was flesh against flesh in gentle pressure.
Again he kissed her. He touched his tongue to hers, aflame with longing. Desire washed over him.
Then he paused and leaned only a fraction away from her. He reached his hands to her hair and smoothed it away from her face. He gazed into her eyes, feeling as though he were looking into her soul, and he experienced something that he had never felt before with other women. It was as though this woman was an extension of himself, as though they were of one heartbeat, even of one soul.
"I love you," Spotted Eagle said softly, sending soft butterfly kisses across Jolena's parted lips. "I shall always love you."
He paused, looked into her eyes again, then said, "I have always loved you."
Jolena was startled by this confession, knowing that she could say the same words to him, and they would be true. Somehow, they had been soul mates even before they met eye to eye, and had loved, cheek to cheek.
She placed a gentle hand to his face. "I have also always loved you," she whispered, then shuddered with pleasure when he swept her fully into his arms again and gave her an all-consuming kiss.
Lost forever to this man, she kissed him back passionately, locking her legs around him as he rose over her and plunged himself deeply inside her. She strained her body upward, meeting his eager thrusts, feeling his heartbeat against her own as he held her within his powerful arms.
And then he released her and crawled on his knees around her, soon placing himself in a position that gave her access to him in a way that made her heart seem to stop and her throat grow dry, understanding his silent bidding as he moved himself closer to her mouth.
Wanting to reciprocate in this sort of loving, since he had already unselfishly pleasured her so wonderfully, she first ran her fingers up and down his throbbing shaft, then touched the tip of his hardness with her tongue, his sensual moan revealing to her just how much he enjoyed this way of being loved.
Getting herself in a comfortable position, she cupped him within her hand and led him to her lips once again. She swept her tongue around him, over and over again, then took him into her mouth. She could feel his body stiffen, then quaver with pleasure.
But soon he urged her away from him and led her to another new way of lovemaking. He urged her to her knees and soon entered her from behind, magnificently filling her where she so unmercifully throbbed for completion.
She closed her eyes and held her head back, awaiting that moment of release, knowing that it was near.
Her whole body seemed an extension of her heart, throbbing… throbbing… throbbing…
And then once again they reached that higher plateau of pleasure that rocked and shook them, as though the earth was shaking beneath them.
Exhausted, they fell apart and lay beside one another on the grass.
"I've never felt as alive," Jolena said, sighing as she gazed lovingly at Spotted Eagle. "Yet what we did, making love in those strange ways? I cannot think it was proper. What came over me? Why did I allow it?"
Spotted Eagle placed his hand at her waist and drew her against him, her breasts crushing into his chest. "What you did was proper," he told her, "because it was done out of love. I will cherish these moments. So should you."
She leaned her cheek against his chest. "Oh, how I want to," she murmured. "It was pure heaven, Spotted Eagle, being with you. I've never felt so free, yet so possessed. How could that be?"
"Loving fiercely is a combination of the two," Spotted Eagle explained. "When you love, your emotions run free, yet your body becomes possessed by the one who loves you. Let that not frighten you. I welcome being possessed by you. You fill the void left in my life many years ago. I will never be lonely again, not while I have you."
"I feel so many things," Jolena said, clinging to him, loving him so. "But most of all, I feel an intense happiness. Hold me, Spotted Eagle. Hold me tightly. I never want to leave you. Never."
He cradled her close, his eyes closed to the past, thinking now only of the future and this woman who had awakened him again to loving.
Two Ridges awakened and found Spotted Eagle gone. He scurried from his blankets and went to Jolena's tent. He sucked in a wild breath when he found it empty.
Almost tripping over his feet, he turned and looked in all directions, wondering which would lead him to Spotted Eagle and Jolena. He wanted to get there before they could make love.
He wanted to be the first with her.
He wanted her never to have cause to think about another man, especially not Spotted Eagle.
An expert tracker, he peered at the tall grass, the moon's glow revealing which route had been taken by his friend and his copper princess.
His eyes continuing to follow the trail of crushed grass, he traveled a far distance, then gasped when he found the body of the panther, two arrows piercing its side.
He knelt close to the panther and examined the arrows.
"Spotted Eagle's," he hissed.
His jaw tight and his heart thundering, he again followed the trail, stopping with a start when just up ahead, in a clearing, he saw two nude figures intertwined on the ground.
His throat went immediately dry and his heart seemed to tumble to his feet, knowing who the lovers were without taking another step.
"I am too late," Two Ridges whispered angrily to himself. "But I still will not give her up. She will be mine. Soon. It cannot be any other way. Even if friends become fast enemies, this woman will be my wife!"
When Spotted Eagle wove his fingers through Jolena's dark hair and drew her lips to his again and kissed her, Two Ridges bitterly turned his eyes away, his hands circled into tight fists at his sides.
"You will be sorry," he said, his voice level and filled with venom.
Chapter Ten
Jolena was deliriously, deliciously in love for the first time in her life. Yet she felt bashfully awkward in the presence of Spotted Eagle now that she had given herself to him. Whenever he looked at her from his powerful stallion as he rode beside her and Kirk's wagon, a sensual thrill attacked her insides.
Jolena avoided her brother's occasional questioning glances, thinking that surely he saw the difference in his sister today by the way her eyes shone and her lips curved into a smile filled with secret, wondrous thoughts.
As now, as she sat straight-backed on the uncomfortable wooden seat of the covered wagon, she could feel two sets of eyes on her from each side of her. Without even looking at her brother and at the man she loved, she knew that their eyes were filled with a keen possession.
Savage Illusions Page 10
