Torn between shock, amusement, and desperate longing, she asked, "Is that an offer, or merely a product of your bizarre sense of humor?"
He sighed, turning his gaze from her to the ceiling. "It wasn't intended as humor. I guess I can't quite bring myself to make a direct offer. If we did marry, the advantages would all be to me. You would be a fool to accept, and you're too intelligent not to know that."
She didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or shriek. The scalding emotions of the night had forced her to admit that she loved Robin, though she wasn't sure that she understood or even wholly trusted him.
Which was not the same as saying that she distrusted him; she didn't doubt that he would be true to any commitment he made. And she understood him a good deal better now than she had an hour before. Still… "Marrying you is not without appeal, but I can't imagine what sort of life we would have. Our backgrounds are hopelessly different, and even though I've been a wanderer in the past, that isn't what I want for the future."
"No more do I.I promise you that I can keep a roof over your head." His mouth quirked satirically. "I am not quite as improvident as I look."
"Robin, look at me." When his gaze turned to her, she asked, "Why do you want to marry me? You have said nothing of love."
His eyes closed in a quick spasm of sorrow. "I can promise many things, Kanawiosta. Security, fidelity, my best efforts to make you happy. But love? I don't think I am very good at love. It is one thing I would be wiser not to promise."
Even when her father had died, Maxie had not ached like this. Robin's painful, despairing honesty made her want to weep. Instead she lifted his damaged left hand and kissed it, then pressed it against her cheek. "Do you want me because I am here and Maggie is not?"
"No." His eyes opened and his fingers tightened around hers. "What I feel for you has nothing to do with Maggie. I did, and do, care for her deeply. I always will, but I don't want you as a substitute for her." Amusement flickered across his handsome, rogue angel face. "You are far too much yourself ever to be mistaken for anyone else."
She felt adrift, uncertain how to react. "Caring and loyalty are valuable, even vital. But is that enough?"
"Don't forget passion." He tugged her hand to bring her down next to him. "I haven't for one minute since I met you."
He rolled over and embraced her. Their lips met, and she thought she would dissolve in liquid fire. There had been kisses and caresses before, but always they had been shadowed by doubt. This time was utterly different. Robin's formidable skill and concentration were for her, and her alone.
She responded with all her wistful yearning. The drama of the night had scoured away normal defenses, and their emotions twined as intimately as their bodies. For a wild, sweet interval, there were no questions, only taste and touch and discovery. No matter how tortured Robin's past, despairing his present, and uncertain his future, she loved him.
He trailed kisses down her throat, then slid her shift off her shoulders to bare her breasts. Cupping them together, he murmured, "Lovely. So perfect and lovely."
As he rubbed his face in the shadowed cleft he created, she was struck by the contrast between her brown skin and his fairness. Then he lapped her nipple with his tongue and she forgot the contrast, forgot her doubts, forgot everything but the pure flame of desire.
Her hands skimmed over his back, tracing the faint ridges of scar tissue from that long ago whipping. Someday she would have to ask him about that, and the bullet wound, and his misshapen hand-about every perilous incident that might have ended his life before they had a chance to meet. But not tonight. Ah, God, not tonight.
Abruptly he pulled away and buried his face in the pillow, his shoulders heaving. "Passion is too easy." His voice was ragged. "Neither of us, I think, is in a state to make decisions."
She was left gasping. Her hands clenched the counterpane as she stared at the ceiling and tried to collect her scattered wits. Why the devil couldn't she have gotten involved with a selfish man who was interested only in his own pleasure?
Because she could not have loved such a man. Speaking with great care, she said, "I gather this means you are undergoing another crisis of conscience."
He emerged from the pillow with a twisted, self mocking smile. "Exactly so."
Gently he pulled her shift up over her shoulders again. His hand lingered for a moment on her breast. Then he moved his arm away, his fingers knotting into a fist. "You're remarkable. After all I've put you through tonight, you should be having shrieking hysterics."
"Believe me, I'm tempted." Limbs still trembling with reaction, she rolled over and propped her head on one hand so she could see his face. "How serious are you about marriage?"
"Completely," he said, his eyes lambent with passion.
She closed her eyes for a moment to marshal her thoughts before speaking. She wanted to say that she loved him, but didn't dare, not after his painful doubts about his ability to love. Neither did she want to give him a new source of guilt if the morning light made him change his mind about his proposal.
Was marriage to Robin why she had been unable to sense her future course? She thought about London, and immediately veered away, shaken by that horrible, black anxiety. But the fleeting contact reinforced her belief that her anxiety had nothing to do with Robin; it was more like a wall of fire that she must pass through in order to have a future.
Trying to suppress an involuntary shiver, she said, "You are right that this is not the time to make decisions. I must learn what happened to my father, and you have a great deal of sorting out to do."
He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss on her forehead. "I'll sort as fast as I can. In the meantime, at least you aren't saying no." He twined a lock of her dark hair around his forefinger. "I may be acting like the next thing to a lunatic, but I don't think I've ever felt happier in my life than these last days with you. I've been wishing this journey would never end. Now, since there will be no final answers until it does, I want to get to London as soon as possible. It's just that…"
She waited patiently for him to continue.
His eyes slid away and his hand stilled. "I don't know if it is wise to marry a woman because I need her so much. I think that might not be good for either of us."
She studied his expression. The detachment that he had worn like a cloak was gone, and she savored the feeling of closeness. But it was difficult to think clearly when her blood was drumming in her veins. On a deeper level, she still felt the majestic, pulsing energies of passion and creation, the belief that together they would find a measure of wholeness.
With sudden dismay, she realized that she had been behaving like her demure Collins cousins. Since meeting Robin, she had been defending her virtue, worrying about the future instead of living in the present, protecting her heart from possible hurt.
But acting like a respectable Englishwoman would not save her from pain; it would only deny her the deepest desire of her heart. It was time to dispense with European reason in favor of Iroquois wisdom. She wanted Robin. She wanted to give and receive, to be the kind of whole, wise, passionate woman her mother had been, even if it was only for an hour. She wanted to live in this moment as freely as the wind and the rain. And in her bones, she knew that doing so was right.
She gave him a smile filled with love. "Your problem, Lord Robert, is that you think too much."
Then she leaned forward and kissed him.
Chapter 24
He could not resist her, yet for one crazed moment, as he thought of all of the people he had damaged, he tried. "Are you sure this is what you want?"
She smiled and raised herself above him, bracing herself with one arm. "Perfectly sure."
Waves of ebony hair framed the exotic features that had entranced him from the moment they had met. She was Kanawiosta, daughter of another land and another race. With her hair spilling over her shiftclad breasts, she looked like a pagan earth goddess, too mysterious for mortal man to know or possess, with a feminine
power that could sear him to cinders.
But when she bent to him again, her lips were warm and real, her small, capable hands generous in their caresses. Surrendering, he opened his mouth to her drugging kiss.
He wanted to inhale her inside of himself so that she could mend the holes in his frayed spirit. He wanted to bury himself inside her and find shelter from the storm that had been raging in his head for a lifetime.
As the kiss intensified, she skimmed her hands over his shoulders and chest, the warmth of her touch glowing through his skin and reaching deep inside him to melt ancient aches. Finally she interrupted their embrace and pushed herself up with one arm, her eyes black with desire and her chest heaving under the translucent shift. "I'm glad you changed your mind."
"You changed it for me." He circled her breasts with his hands, using his thumbs to caress her nipples. They hardened, thrusting against the thin fabric. She closed her eyes and smiled, making a sound like a pleased cat.
He pushed her shift from her shoulders and down to her waist so that he could admire the sweet curve of her breasts. They were exactly right-not too large, not too small, deliciously crowned with circles the texture of sheared velvet. Huskily he said, "You belong in the Garden of Eden, where clothing was unknown."
"Eden was in a warmer climate than England," she said practically. Her smile turned wicked as she looked at his drawers. Even through the loose linen, his response to her was blindingly obvious.
"If we're going to pretend this is Eden, these must go." She tugged at the drawstring, then caught hold of his drawers and began pulling them off. It would have only taken a moment to remove them if she hadn't helped. Instead, her wandering, teasing hands made the process take much longer, and almost reduced him to incoherence.
When they were both as bare as Adam and Eve, he drew her forward so that she was lying on top of him. Her breasts crushed against his chest, the nipples a distinct, teasing pressure.
He could not get enough of the heated depths of her mouth. His hands glided down her back to linger on the ripe curves of her buttocks. Lost in yearning, he kneaded the firm muscles that lay beneath her satiny skin.
She sucked in her breath, and her lower body rocked against his. Her legs parted a little and his heated shaft slid between her thighs, rubbing against her with an intimacy just short of intercourse. She made a tiny mewling sound and her teeth nipped his collarbone when his hips thrust upward once, then again.
He wanted this to be slow and perfect, as she deserved, but she was making a shambles of his control. Struggling against the white heat that threatened to consume him, he caught her in his arms and rolled so that their positions reversed and he was above.
"Not so swiftly, Kanawiosta." He caught her wrists and pinned them to the mattress on both sides of her head. "In interests of justice, I deserve a chance to drive you mad."
"I'm a great believer in justice," she said with a ravishingly feminine smile.
Taking his time, he grazed her breasts with his chin, the hidden whiskers delicately abrading the silky, lavender scented skin until her body thrummed with desire. He bent his head and took the tawny tip of one nipple into his mouth, sucking and tugging until it was so rigid it grooved his tongue. Then he turned to her other breast.
When she exhaled feverishly and twisted against him, he trailed his mouth downward, over the arc of her ribs and the taper of her narrow waist. He paused to swirl his tongue around her navel, then nibbled the flat arc of her belly.
She strained against his pinioning hands, panting, "You've gotten your wish. In another five seconds, I'll be raving."
"Excellent." He straightened up and claimed her mouth again in a lushly sensual kiss. Abandoning all pretense of being in control, he released her wrists and wrapped one arm around her. His other hand glided downward, following the path of his earlier kisses until his fingers became tangled in feathery black curls.
She quivered when he first touched the hidden folds of female flesh. They were slick and swollen with moist heat.
He probed deeper until he found the exquisitely sensitive nub he sought. The gentle friction of his finger caused her to writhe frantically.
He broke their kiss so she could drag great gulps of air into her lungs. Then he closed his eyes, blocking out the beguiling sight of her so he could concentrate on the subtle messages of her body. Harder here. Back and forth again and again there, as her breath roughened and her hips bucked.
As the heady scent of passion filled his nostrils, her pliant nakedness became his whole world It had been unutterably long since he had held a woman like this, and never had he felt such deep yearning.
The wildness built higher and higher, filling her mind with crimson fire. When she could bear no more, she cried out, her thighs clamping on his hand as a vortex of sensations swirled through her. The enfolding strength of his embrace held her safe as her spirit spiraled skyward, soaring falcon free.
As she returned to earth, she sagged against Robin, dazed and trembling. He lay on his side, holding her close against him while one hand caressed her from shoulder to hip in long, easy strokes. She tilted her head back, and the satisfaction she saw in his eyes assuaged her sense of selfishness.
But underneath his composed surface, his body was tense and unfulfilled. She lay back on the pillows, then caught his hand and pulled him across her. "Your turn, Robin."
It took only a single slow, wanton roll of her hips to splinter his calm. His face stark with urgency, he parted her legs with one knee, then probed her intimately, separating the delicate folds. Nothing more was needed, for her body was still wetly welcoming.
He braced himself over her and positioned the velvety head of his shaft. Then he thrust forward, sheathing himself in her willing flesh with one swift stroke.
The pain was brief but intense, a shock wave that swept through her whole body in an instant. Then it was gone, leaving a not unpleasant sense of internal stretching, and the deep satisfaction of knowing that they were mated in the dance of life.
The effect on Robin was far worse. He stiffened, his expression stunned. "Good God, Maxie! Why didn't you say something?"
She smiled and slid her arms around him, clasping his hard buttocks to hold him tight against her. "Because I knew you would get one of those maddening attacks of gentlemanliness. You can't help it, you're an Englishman." She rolled her hips upward, drawing him deeper. "You're thinking too much again, Robin. Don't."
Unable to resist, he drove into her again and again, his breath fractured and irregular. Though she had never experienced such sensations, she knew in her marrow how to respond, how to match his rhythm and resonate to his passion. She welcomed the flagrant maleness of his assault as much as she rejoiced in the female power that could inflame and absorb such desire.
His body arched and went rigid. "Ah, God…" he groaned, his voice a low, shuddering prayer. Though she did not reach the same fiery pinnacle as before, she felt an echoing sense of release and fulfillment.
As his body softened, she smoothed her hands over his sweat slicked body, feeling the slow relaxation of his muscles. She touched her tongue to his shoulder, liking the saltiness, and the pounding of his heart, so close it seemed like her own.
He rubbed his cheek against hers, then rolled away and slid from the bed. Too exhausted even to be curious, she simply watched him cross the room. Garden of Eden indeed. Robin must be used to the casualness of naked lovers, but it was new to her, and an unanticipated pleasure. He was like a mountain lion, sleek and lithe and utterly masculine. The memory of what it had been like to have him inside her made her exhale roughly.
He went to the washstand and opened the drawer. After removing something, he returned to the bed and handed her a neatly folded towel. She used it to cleanse herself, and was pleased to see there were only a few spots of blood. It would have seemed gauche to stain a stranger's bed.
When she was done, he stretched out alongside her and drew her into his arms again. "Was I such a path
etic case that you felt compelled to do your utmost to patch me up?" he asked with rueful amusement.
She smiled. "I suppose there is a grain of truth in that, but it hardly does justice to either of us. I've wanted you from the time we met, Robin. Tonight I decided to stop acting like a demure English miss and behave like a woman of the Mohawk." She made an exaggerated face and nipped his shoulder. "We are famed for our ferocity. We take what we want, white man."
Tenderly, he massaged the back of her neck, his thumb exactly fitting a hollow he found there. "You had me thoroughly baffled. Given your age, your contraceptive tea, and general lack of maidenly vapors, I had assumed you were not a virgin."
"Among the Iroquois, many families share a longhouse. Children learn early what is natural between men and women."
"You also said once that women of your mother's people have a freer acceptance of their desires. Certainly you are comfortable with yourself like few women I've ever known." He gave her a quizzical glance. "But that makes it even harder for me to understand why I was the first for you. Are American men such fools?"
She grimaced. "As I said once before, there were plenty of men who thought a halfbreed was fair game, but I decided early on that I would not be used so casually. Yet because we traveled so much, there was little opportunity to develop the kind of relationship where I could be sure I was desired for myself." Which was true as far as it went. What she did not say was that resisting advances had been easy, because she had never met a man who attracted her half as much as Robin.
He kissed her on the forehead. "Whatever the reason, I am greatly honored to be your choice."
She eyed him sternly. "You're not going to make some silly remark to the effect that since you ruined me, it's your duty to give me your name in holy matrimony, are you?"
"I might if I thought I had any chance of success, but I know you well enough to realize that such an argument would never work." He ran his hand down her body under the blanket. "Besides, you don't seem ruined to me. You seem quite enchantingly flawless."
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