His breath warmed her neck, and he reached for the tapes that tied her skirt.
His touch at her waist surprised her, yet she did not want him to stop. She was ready, now, to delve into the mysteries her friend had told her of. He freed the top pin from her bodice, and she leaned toward him, shivering with an eager hope when his hand brushed her breast. He flung her rose dress and white petticoats over the tangled bushes that grew to the water’s edge. Sunlight poured down on her exposed skin.
Instinctively her arms folded over her breasts.
Gently he lowered them to her sides.
“Bitte,” he said. “Please. We talked of this. Do you remember?”
Everything, she thought. All too well. She nodded, feeling brave, but not brave enough for words.
“Let me give you this pleasure. Don’t be afraid.”
She did not want to be afraid. She wanted to be free. She wanted to explore this craving rising within her, this tension pulling her to him. This delight in her body, his touch.
He untied the rawhide thong around her braids, unraveled the plaits with his fingers, and draped her hair over her shoulders and down her back. A reluctant tendril encircled the sensitive tip of her breast. He swept it away and took a short step back, frankly admiring her. “I have longed to see you so.”
Shyly proud, she stood for his inspection, her nipples puckering into hard points. His gaze traveled down her body. The triangle of fleece at the base of her belly seemed a glaring red, the weight of his attention there almost too much to bear. Moonlight had been far less revealing. And the day he had bathed and dressed before her, she had been too shy to truly take in the sight of him. Today she would try.
She slid her hands under his waistcoat and eased it over his shoulders. He rewarded her with a smile of incredible sweetness. Before, she remembered, he had not wanted her to fold his clothes. Following his example, she tossed his coat and shirt over a nearby limb, and he shucked off his boots, his breeches.
Her husband stood before her, naked as Adam in the garden, and more beautiful. He seemed even larger than when his clothes contained him. Her civilized town Elder was the golden bear she had first thought him to be. The midday sun dappled the work-bronzed skin of his massive torso.
She hardly knew where to rest her eyes. As before, her gaze skittered down his body—just so far—and retreated up to the familiar safety of his face.
“Look at all of me, Retha. I want you to.”
She made herself look down. The thicket of hair around his manhood was a darker gold than the hair on his head. And his arousal—
She saw that he was aroused, felt him watching her. She turned away from this intimate knowledge.
He turned her back. “Look again, wife,” he said, his voice softer, entreating. “Think of me as you. We are one. All of me is yours. This too.”
Her eagerness—her courage—deserted her. The concept was too grand, the sight too personal. Despite her intention to seduce her husband, she had to stifle an urge to bolt into the woods. Briars seemed safer than this leap into the unknown. She cast about for words that might distract him.
“Alice never said to do it standing,” she ventured.
His grin was indulgent. “No, not here. I wouldn’t try to love you standing here.”
Relaxing his grip on her hands, he bent, scooped her up, and waded into the pool that the waterfall had carved into rock. The creek bank dropped off sharply. Suddenly her toes, her trailing arms, her buttocks skimmed cool water. She squealed and struggled playfully against him, even knowing that it was hot and summer and that she was safe.
“I’ve got you,” Jacob said, wading in deeper, immersing her to the tips of her breasts. His head bent toward them. She closed her eyes.
His mouth seized one taut nipple in a tender, suckling bite. Pinpoints of feeling like a driving rain rushed through her breasts to the center of her being. She cried out in surprise, opening her eyes to his brilliant indigo gaze.
His own fierce pleasure glowed as he murmured encouragement.
Under the mist that the falls churned up, he released her legs. They drifted down. Her feet came to rest on his large, corded ones, securely planted on the rock bottom of the pool. He flattened her body to his. In his arms, she felt like a leaf floating down the stream. Above her, the falls roared, drowning out his breathing and her own. There was only his body holding hers, his chest rising and falling against her, his massive thighs rigid against her thighs, and at her belly, his swollen shaft. An urgent pulsing flooded her deep inside, bringing back the feelings that had frightened her before, the ones for which she had no name. She named them now: Longing. Craving. Desire.
Jacob’s eyes could not disguise his want; she saw a hunger to match her own. “Wrap your legs around me, Liebling,” he said, his voice grating.
She hesitated, not quite understanding what he asked. He slipped her body inches higher. She reached out for balance, grasping air. He claimed her hand and brought it to his mouth.
“I want you holding on to naught but me.”
And there was nothing, no one but him. With a shiver of anticipation, she parted her thighs around his slick hips and hooked her legs around his. Her arms draped over the reassuring shelf of his broad shoulders. He held her effortlessly, his awesome strength her refuge as the water lapped around them.
But he was so still.
Was she supposed to still herself likewise?
Perhaps. She hadn’t been instructed in the art of loving her husband while they were standing. She struggled not to move. But her body, opened to him, demanded contact, pressure, movement. Despite herself, her hips curled into him.
With a groan of surrender, he pressed against her belly, and a sense of wonder surged through her. And of her own power. She had driven him to that. Then, rigid with tension, he stilled himself again.
“You stopped,” she gasped into the mist from the falls.
“Not my turn,” he said hoarsely. “This is for you. Move as you wish to move.”
As she had to move, he might as well have said. He helped her glide her mysterious, private center up and down along his ready shaft. Her body felt weightless in his grasp, but a heavy heat pooled between her legs. He mumbled encouragement, his hot words exhorting her to crush herself to him, faster, harder.
This was far from gentle, she thought, exulting at his power. At her own. Yet, no matter what he said, this had to hurt, and so she slowed.
With a low growl, he shifted her tighter to him. “Don’t stop, Retha. Your body knows what to do.”
His strong hands on her buttocks guided her to a shorter, tenser movement. Thrills showered into her core, leaving her breathless, pressing her center into him, seeking something unknown, unnamable, something just out of reach.
“I can’t let go,” she cried.
“Danke Gott,” he said, and spun her under the falls, drenching them in its spray. “Where is your fear now, Liebling?”
“Gone, all gone,” she laughed, still seeking his heat.
He returned them to the sun. With a newfound joy, she shook streams of water from her hair, its wet tendrils lashing both of them. His voice thickened.
“You’re so close, so close to where you’re going. Let me send you over the falls.”
Slipping one hand between them, he touched her hungry flesh with deep, gentle pinches. She almost screamed as an upsurge of sensation poured through her, as her very center contracted around him. Of its own accord, her body arced out of control, wrenching a cry from her that she recognized even as it scraped out of her throat. It was the cry of women in the night, the cry that she had taken for pain. But this was not pain, this was torrents of pleasure, slaking desire, fulfilling need.
And she was whole, and she was his, and she was free.
She sank her head into the safe haven of his shoulder, clinging, shaking, shaken. She marveled at her power, the forces flooding her senses.
“Ah, Retha,” he groaned. “I wanted this for yo
u.”
She could feel the hot pulsing of his body, but he remained as still as stone.
Consciousness, memory trickled back. They were not done. She had been too eager. Too selfish. He had not entered her.
“You didn’t…” She trailed off. Their awesome act of loving had been easy, compared to putting anything in words.
“Finish?” he said for her. He grinned down at her, looking not in the least put out but like a very hungry man. “Not yet. We have all day. We have a lifetime.”
“Shouldn’t you? Now, I mean?”
“We could do it now,” he drawled, as if considering.
“You don’t want to?” Perhaps she had done it wrong. But how could she have, when it had felt so wonderful?
“I want to. And we will.” He gave her a hard, convincing kiss, then simply held her in the stream as if she were a treasure, a cherished woman. The water eddied around them, cooling her. She heard a scolding jay, a noisy wren. The sun dried her face. Finally he began again. Nipping, where he had kissed before. Kissing, where a tender bite had flamed into her body. In minutes she was trembling, and he was no longer still. Or quite so steady as he had been.
“But can we really do this here?” Standing? In the water? She still felt ignorant, but she was game.
A wicked grin strained across his face. “We can try.”
She braced her arms on his shoulders, opened her legs around him, and he guided himself in. She quivered at the newness of this inmost touch, its tightness, her stunning satisfaction.
“Ah, Liebling, you’re so tight.” From the rapt tension in his voice, she gathered that this was good. He pushed inside her, feeling hot and hard and slick all at once. The pressure was delicious and then suddenly, sharply painful. She gave a small cry of surprise, and he withdrew. Cold water filled the empty space where he had been, and she felt the loss, the deprivation.
She wanted him in her. She wanted his pleasure. She wanted to be his.
“Alice told me, Jacob. I can bear the hurt. Make me your wife.”
Remembering all she knew of Cherokee courage, she fortified herself. But before she could think another thought, he entered her, arching up and tearing her maiden barrier. The stabbing pang brought tears to her eyes, but she did not pull away. He waited, his manhood throbbing inside her. The hurt stung, lingered, ebbed. She felt herself contract around him. Only then did he begin to move, slowly at first, and deeper, until she enfolded all of him. Surrounded by the pounding fall of water, she rode his driving rhythm until deep shudders cascaded through her. He met her ecstasy with a fierce growl, a final plunge into her depths. This time, at last, she relished all the satisfaction and the triumph of his cry.
Sweet lassitude, Jacob thought, reclining on the ledge beside the stream, waiting for Retha to finish collecting plants. He had pulled on his breeches, helped his wife dress, and sent her off for dyestuffs. That was what the children would expect to see. Someone’s expectations should be met today. His had not, thank God. He had expected a long day’s trek through the woods and had hoped for a kiss or two. Instead, he had gained a lover. He had lost his heart.
Arm raised, he measured that the sun had moved a hand’s breadth across the heavens. Suddenly Retha’s image filled the sky. She leaned over and offered him a wildflower.
“Indigo.” She smiled. “The blue matches your eyes.”
“You found that here?”
“Just wild. Here and there, above the falls. I’m not supposed to use it.”
He had forgotten that. Even before the war had exhausted the supplies of this most common dye, only men had worked with indigo because of the urine used to fix the color.
“But you do?”
She gave a sly shrug that neither confirmed nor denied it. “’Tis the last bloom.” She gave it to him.
Its delicate flower was a hearty, vibrant blue. His daughter’s eyes, Nicholas’s, and, he supposed, his own. He threaded the sprig over Retha’s right ear. In the golden light of early afternoon her beauty shone, her pale brown eyes sparkling like honey in the sun, her amber hair aflame where it had begun to dry. He reached for his shirt and stock dangling from branches overhead. She sat on the ledge, braiding her damp hair and watching as he put on his clothes.
Her intense attention charmed him.
“Do you like what you see?”
She sighed sweetly. “I liked everything.”
His heart turned over in his chest. When she had shattered in his arms, it had felt as though her blood pulsed in his veins. When she had ridden him, driving him to his own explosion, he had felt a passion as pure and wild as uncharted wilderness.
Their union this day seemed the miracle he had prayed for. It seemed that she accepted him at last, whole and unafraid.
But was she whole? And had she truly overcome her fears?
The day Scaife brought her home, Jacob thought she invited his love, only to freeze again when he approached her in their bed. Perhaps his morning kisses helped dispel her fears. And his daily barrage of kisses and caresses. Perhaps.
He smiled a covert, satiated smile. He would take her home and hope that this was so, but he could always bring her back. He would be content to seduce her this way for the rest of their lives.
“Jacob, look.” Her whisper broke his reverie. She pointed to the opposite bank.
“Where? I see naught,” he said quietly.
“In the ferns, beneath the elm.”
He squinted. A gray shape stood statue still, head high, alert. “’Tis a wolf.” He put out a restraining, protective arm.
“My wolf. She found us,” Retha whispered, digging into her skirts and retrieving a knotted bundle of food from her pocket. Their lunch.
“Not our meal, not for that beast.” He grabbed for the bundle, but his concern was not their food. Retha never heeded warnings; she invited danger. He wanted her to be careful.
“Just the bacon,” Retha said. “I have to see if she is truly well.”
He was not quick enough to stop his wife. She climbed the steep incline to the top of the falls, crossed the stream, and descended the other bank, using vines and branches for handholds. With far less caution than he could approve of, she approached the wolf, stopping a few paces from it and kneeling, hand extended. He could see Retha’s lips move, but the water’s roar drowned out her words.
Half-crouched, the wolf took one step and then another toward her. She let it come to her.
Tail wagging like an ordinary dog’s, it gobbled up the bacon and snuffled her palm, looking for more. Satisfied there was none, it sat on its haunches as if it meant to stay awhile.
The beast was not afraid of her, Jacob thought, amazed. Nor she of it. She was more at home, more wondrous in the wild than he could possibly have imagined. He had been criminal to keep her home, to lock her away from this simple, savage happiness. For part of her belonged here.
Some part of him did, too. He reclined on his side, content to watch, more content than he had been in years of civilized confinement in his beloved village. His golden-eyed bride had brought him to the wilderness, the dream of which had called him to this country when he was seventeen. The dream that duty had deprived him of. He loved her for bringing him here. He loved her in the wilderness.
He loved her. His brave, wild bride who befriended proud, young wolves, troublesome daughters, ailing sons. Who met her lusty husband’s deepest needs. Sister Krause’s words from days before the wedding floated back to him. The wellspring of your happiness. He breathed in dampness, greenery, and let his chest fill with a new contentment. Then he closed his eyes.
Duty, and the war, seemed very far away.
Even from a distance, Jacob thought Salem unusually bustling as he and Retha neared home. A farm wagon rattled past them, heading toward the Square. A couple of militia men galloped out of town, kicking up a plume of choking dust. Uneasy, he shrugged off his impression of danger. Some days were busier than others. Dust enveloped them, and Retha slowed down. Their lovema
king must have exhausted her. Or hurt her.
“Suppose they can tell,” she whispered.
“Tell what?”
“That we have been…together.”
Anyone with eyes to see would guess as much, Jacob thought. That notion would not set well with her. Her swollen lips, flushed cheeks, sloe eyes all said she had been ravished. Well ravished, he thought with bone-deep, hot-blooded male satisfaction.
“They cannot,” he said, assuring himself that God forgives small lies told in kindness. “They assume this part over and done with weeks ago.”
“Oh!” she gasped, blushing furiously. “All this time! They thought that.”
On the well-trodden road in the settling dust, he stopped her at Steiner’s Mill.
“They wished that for us, Retha. This union. ’Tis the way of a man and his bride. Even among the Indians you lived with, surely—”
“That was different.”
“Different? How?”
“Just different!” She stomped ahead of him, her sack of goldenseal bumping against her tempting behind with each agitated step she took. He caught up to her at the log bridge.
“If you must know,” she snapped, “what they did frightened me.”
“Frightened you?”
“The cries at night sounded like fighting. Then after I came here, no one ever talked with me about what people do when they’re married.”
“Not even your friend Sister Ernst?” he teased.
“No, not exactly. Some of the younger Single Sisters talked about it, but not to me.”
“Now you know,” he said softly, reaching for the back of his neck in frustration. Rosina Krause should never have left his wife’s instruction wholly up to him.
Beyond the tannery, newly erected tents crowded the meadow, and men in blue milled about idly.
“More troops,” she protested anxiously, speeding ahead.
“Within their rights,” he reminded her. Reluctant to return to town and public obligations, he reverted to personal matters. “Someday you will wish such a happy union for Nicholas and Matthias and Anna Johanna. And someday, for our children yet to come.”
“Our children?” she faltered. “I had not thought you wanted more.”
Wild Indigo Page 28
