by HELEN HARDT
He brushed the soft fabric over her shoulders, and his swift intake of breath buzzed in her ear. She wore nothing under her dress but a sheer chemise. And drawers, of course, but he hadn’t gotten that far yet.
Ella stiffened. Where had that last thought come from? Surely he wasn’t thinking of removing her drawers and stockings.
As his rough fingers swept the translucent chemise from her shoulders, she looked into his black eyes, aware, and uncaring, that her bare breasts were exposed to his smoldering gaze. The tips of her nipples tightened. A desire for him to touch them surged through her.
“Hopa,” Raven said. “So very beautiful.” He fingered wisps of her thick hair, positioning the tresses around her shoulders and breasts. “The first time I saw you I wondered how you would look naked, with your hair unbound. I am not disappointed, tehila.”
Warmth drizzled through her. He pulled her to his body, crushing her breasts to his bare chest. “This is how it should be between lovers. Nothing between us.”
Ella gasped, and a high pitched squeak escaped her throat. The sensation of his chest against her soft breasts enthralled her. He was warm, and oh, so hard. Her nipples tightened further, until she was certain he could feel them poking into his muscle. Chills ran through her body, and the moist place between her legs pulsed. Nothing, Ella decided, had ever felt quite so good.
“Oh, Raven.” Her voice was breathy, as though it came from above their bodies.
“Good, tehila?”
“I had no idea.”
He chuckled softly. “This is only the beginning.” He lowered her gently to the soft ground. “You are so very beautiful. So perfectly made by the Great Spirit. Skin the color of the moonlight that shines above us.”
He ran his hand over her shoulder, over the hill of her breasts, cupping one. Ella inhaled sharply. His touch was foreign, yet she’d never felt anything quite so right.
“Raven?”
“Yes?”
“Will you touch me? On my…” Ella couldn’t form the word.
“Anywhere you like.” He flicked his thumb over a nipple.
She arched upward, moaning.
“There? You want me to touch you there?”
“Yes. Please.”
Raven kneaded both breasts together and ran his thumbs in circles over her nipples. Ella shuddered, her entire body prickling with awareness and pleasure. When he plucked a nipple between his fingers and tugged, she groaned and nearly shot upward. The sensation traveled over her body and landed between her legs.
“Raven! I feel so—”
“Shh, tehila. Let me pleasure you.” He smoothed a finger through the valley between her breasts. “Would you like me to kiss you here?”
Kiss her? On her breasts? “That’s not where you kiss.”
He laughed, a slow, deep rumble. “Why not? I kiss your cheeks, your neck, your sweet lips. Why not the rest of you?”
“But…there?”
“There is only the beginning, tehila. I wish to kiss you everywhere. But I’ll start with these.”
“Raven, I don’t know…” Yes, please. Kiss them.
“You like my hands there, do you not?”
She sighed, trying to catch her breath.”
“My mouth there will please you, Ella. I promise.”
He lowered his head and brushed his lips lightly over the skin above her nipple. She quivered, rolling her head back against the soft mossy ground and closing her eyes. The sleek warmth of his tongue claimed her, and when he grazed over a hard nipple, her body jerked and her eyes opened. A blazing flame flickered under her nipple and traveled outward, igniting her entire body. He continued licking. She moaned, and just when she thought she couldn’t take any more of this torturous pleasure, he latched onto a tender bud and sucked.
Any rational part of her brain that was left fled. The soft tugs of his lips on her nipple catapulted her into a frenzied dreamworld. From some faraway place, her own voice cried his name, begged him to continue, to tug harder, to make her his. And even farther in the distance, the Indian drums thumped rapidly, in pace with her heart.
“Tehila.”
A voice. Raven’s voice.
“Ella.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she gazed into a blur. She blinked, trying to focus. Raven. His black eyes seared into hers. Why had he stopped kissing her?
“Please,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
“But I must. Or I will not be able to. I fear I have overestimated my control.”
“But you said you’d kiss me everywhere. And if other places feel as good as…as that did…”
“They will feel better. But I cannot.”
“Raven.” She breathed, inhaling, exhaling, her heart thudding. If he didn’t put his lips back on her, she feared she might die an untimely death. “Please.”
“You test my strength.” He brushed her cheek in a soft kiss. “I will try to please you.”
Thank God. Ella closed her eyes. The swish of soft fabric tickled her thighs as Raven removed first her dress and chemise and then her drawers, shoes, and stockings. The soft night breeze caressed her bare skin.
Bare skin? Goodness, what had she been thinking? Her eyes flew open. Raven’s head bobbed between her legs. When had she spread them? This was most unseemly. She opened her mouth to protest, but gasped as his tongue touched her. There.
He looked up. “Tehila?”
What did one say? What could one say? He was looking at her secret place. He was kissing it. “Raven.”
“You are so beautiful, Ella. Every part of you. Do not be afraid.”
“I-I’m not afraid.”
“You wanted me to kiss you everywhere.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think you meant—”
His chuckle reverberated against her folds, sending chills throughout her body. “Do you wish me to stop?”
He lapped at her again and she nearly flew off the ground. No, her mind demanded. No. Do not stop.
“N-No, Raven. I…it feels…so…” She groaned as he licked her again. Sensation danced within her. Fear. Pleasure. Want. Need.
She felt, more than heard, the soft words he murmured into her core. “Beautiful… Wet… So lovely…” Then words she couldn’t understand. And then his lips clamped onto a spot that made her convulse with a joy so rapturous, so pure, she thought she had soared out of her skin and into the heavens themselves.
From the ground she heard herself sobbing his name, and from somewhere deep within her body, she felt him breach that most private part of her with his finger, moving it in slow circles inside her until she flew even higher.
After moments of mindless bliss, she opened her eyes and found Raven’s face next to hers.
“My beautiful Ella,” he said. “I must take you back now. To your cabin. If I do not, I will take your maidenhood.”
“M-My maidenhood?” Ella squirmed, still feeling the glow of her flight to the stars. Yet she knew there was more to share with Raven. And she wanted it. She wanted it all.
“Yes, my love. I want to come inside your body. Make you mine. But I cannot. Not until you consent to be my wife.”
“Y-Your wife?”
“Yes. I will not take what is not mine.”
“B-But, Raven. I want you to. I-I need you to.” Ella looked into the black eyes of this beautiful man who seemed to recognize her soul. He was hers. Her destiny. Why hadn’t she seen it before? “I will be your wife, Raven. I want nothing more.”
“Tehila,” he groaned, and then locked his mouth onto hers in a searing kiss.
Ella kissed him back with a passion she had only now uncovered. The passion of a woman in love. He tasted different, tangy, and she warmed as she realized she tasted the nectar of her own body. He fumbled on top of her, removed his buckskins, and within seconds his hardness probed for entrance.
“Tehila,” he whispered, kissing her ear. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, Raven. Please.”
“When I take your maid
enhead, you will feel pain. This part of me is…larger than the finger I used before. But tehila, I will not be able to stop. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I know it’s painful the first time. I…I want to be yours. In every way I can be.”
He spoke several words in his own language, and then plunged into her body with one swift thrust.
Ella gasped at the intrusion. A tear of pain knifed through her, but then she felt only a fullness. It was strange, yet somehow comforting. In a foreign way, she felt complete.
“Ella.” Raven’s voice was hoarse, as though he’d caught the fever. “Ella.”
“Raven?”
“I…I must. May I?” He panted against her neck.
“May you what, Raven?”
“Are you? Are you…in pain?”
“No. It…it hurt at first, but now I feel mostly full.”
He murmured in his own language again and then said, “I will move inside of you now.”
“Yes. All right.”
He pulled his hardness out of her and plunged it back inside. She gasped, not from pain, but from the fresh intrusion of his body into hers. He pulled out and thrust again, touching her, completing her. She gasped each time, and the whole of the sensation—his hard chest brushing the tips of her nipples, his lips nibbling on her neck, the hot skin of his thighs caressing hers, her body hugging his in the most intimate of ways—flooded her with an emotion so powerful, so fierce, she couldn’t keep from crying out in joy.
As she sobbed into his hard shoulder, her body climbed the peak once more and she ran toward the precipice. “Raven!” Her voice flew toward the Black Hills. “Raven!”
“Yes, Ella. Come with me. Come!”
And together they soared to the stars.
Chapter Six
Ella lay in Raven’s arms, her head snuggled into his shoulder. Though rationally she knew she shouldn’t have lain with him outside of wedlock, she couldn’t bring herself to regret the action. Against the warmth of his hard body she felt complete in a purely spiritual way. “Is it always this way?”
“No.” He smoothed his hands over the contours of her back, her buttocks. “Only between true mates of the spirit.”
“But, how do you know?”
“I have—” He cleared his throat. “With widows in my band. Men have needs.”
“Oh.” A stab of jealousy pierced Ella’s gut.
“I was fulfilling a physical need only, tehila. Now that I have you, I can fulfill the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual. There is nothing in the world more beautiful.”
“Raven, I fear I cannot… That is, when you came into me…” Ella sighed. So much emotion flooded her and she had no idea how to put it into words.
“What did you feel, tehila?”
“I felt…complete, Raven. Complete in the most wonderful of ways.” A tear trickled out of her eye, down her cheek, and spilled onto Raven’s hard shoulder.
“It will always be that way for us. We complete each other. And when we are not joined, a small part of us will always ache for it.”
“I think…” Ella let out a soft giggle. Her body felt on fire—swollen, ripe, and on fire. “I think I’m aching for it already, Raven.”
His husky laugh feathered through her hair. “As am I. But you are sore. You must heal before I take you again.”
“Why?”
“A maiden must heal after her first time. It is natural and normal. For now, I want you to put your clothing back on. The breeze has gotten a bit cooler, and I don’t want you to catch a chill.”
“In the summer? I couldn’t possibly.”
Raven tightened his arms around her. “For me, tehila.”
“Goodness. All right.” She sat up and glanced around for her clothing. “You’ll have to button me.” She pulled on her stockings and drawers, then her chemise. When her head popped through the neck opening of her calico, Raven was already behind her, fastening her. After he had helped her, he donned his buckskins and moccasins, pulled her to his body once more, and embraced her.
“You are everything to me, Ella,” he whispered into her hair, his breath tickling her. “Everything.”
She warmed, and smiled against his chest, slick with perspiration. Her heart felt complete. Oh, so complete. “Raven?”
“Hmm?”
“What will we do now?”
“You will come live with me. With my people. I will care for you and for our children.”
“Leave my family?” What would Mama and Papa do without her? She was all they had. “And have children? Goodness.”
“What? You do not wish for children?”
“Well, of course, I would love children.” She imagined a little boy with bronze skin and black eyes. A beautiful baby boy. Oh, yes, she definitely wanted children. “I just hadn’t thought about it. But yes, Raven. I would love to have your children.”
“We will live with my people, high in the Black Hills, where the ravens and hawks soar.”
“How lovely.”
Raven turned Ella in his arms, positioned her back against his chest, and pulled her close. “The waning moon sits high in the sky, tehila.” He pointed. “You can see the summit of the highest peak.”
Ella nodded, taking in the breathtaking beauty of the shadowed mountains in the moonlight.
“That is where the thunderbird lives.”
“The thunderbird?”
“Yes, he flashes lightning from his eyes, and with each flap of his wings, the thunder booms.”
“You’re joking again.” She swatted his forearm lightly.
“No. It’s a story my people tell their children.”
“That’s silly, Raven.” She laughed. “A storm is just a storm.”
“Perhaps.” He kissed the top of her head. “But my people have passed stories of the thunderbird down for centuries. Still, young children are warned not to go too near the peak of the highest mountain.”
Ella shivered in Raven’s arms. Silly, to fear a mythical creature. Perhaps her shivers were not due to the thunderbird, after all.
Raven’s husky laugh blew into her hair. “I will protect you from the thunderbird.”
She giggled. She knew he would protect her from everything. “Where is your camp?”
“Do you know the creek that runs through these woods?” He gestured, and she nodded. “It runs downstream. If you follow it upstream for several hours, it will lead you to a clearing in the dense evergreens. It is there my tribe makes its home.”
Ella closed her eyes and imagined living with Raven, making a home with him in the Black Hills, raising his beautiful children.
“Raven…”
“Yes?”
“Why are the Black Hills so important to your people? To you?”
“Why do you ask this?”
“Well, I know little of how our government works, but I do know that the Black Hills were given to your tribes, weren’t they?”
“No one can give us any of this land, tehila. It is not ours to take, nor yours to give. But yes, you are correct. Your government decided to let us keep the hills. Until your army decided there was gold here.”
“Yes, yes, I know all about that, and I’m sorry. The prospectors are a greedy bunch, Raven. I didn’t want to come here, but my father felt it necessary. If he only knew…” Ella trembled, remembering the vile men who had offered her money.
“If he only knew what, Ella?”
“Never mind.”
“What is it?” He tightened against her. “We have no secrets now, wife.”
Ella’s lips curved upward at the word “wife.” She didn’t want to tell him about the men in town. It made her feel…dirty. But he was right. They had no secrets now. “Several men in town, prospectors, have offered me gold.”
“For what?”
“For…”
Raven’s arms tensed around her. “You are to stay away from that town. Venture nowhere from now on without me at your side. You are mine to protect now, Ella,” h
e rasped in her ear. “No other man shall touch you.”
Ella gasped. “I don’t want any other man.”
His arms loosened. “Forgive me. I did not mean to hold you so tightly. But the thought of one of those… Putting his hands on you…”
Ella turned in his arms. His handsome face was twisted in anguish.
“Nothing happened, Raven. You were the first.”
“I know, tehila.” He kissed her neck. “I know.” He lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “You asked why the Black Hills are so important to us. I will tell you. They are a reminder of the power of the Great Spirit and the insignificance of everything else. The hills are a symbol of the beauty and strength of the Great Spirit.” He lowered his mouth to hers. “But they pale in comparison to you.”
The kiss was not gentle. He claimed her, dared any other man to touch her. She became his with that one kiss, almost more so than when he’d made love to her. She reveled in his passion, his possessiveness. She melted into his mouth, into his body, into his soul, and gave all of herself to him, knowing, without a doubt, that he was her destiny.
And then, from somewhere outside the shield of love that housed her and Raven, a shotgun barrel clicked.
Chapter Seven
“Get your filthy red hands off my daughter!”
Ella stiffened. Her father. She tore her lips from Raven’s and turned in his arms. A veil of moonlight illuminated the creases of her father’s handsome face. Her heart quickened. “P-Papa?”
“Move away from him, Ella.”
“Papa, please.”
“Move away from him, so I can send him to his maker.”
Raven’s arms tightened around her body. “Papa, you’re not a killer. And there’s no reason—”
“Ella, I’m not playing around here. Has he hurt you?”
“Of course not. Papa, he—”
“Move away from him, so I can put a bullet through his brain.”
The icy tone of her father’s voice sliced into Ella’s marrow. Her father was against violence. Against killing. What had gotten into him?
“You bastards won’t take another one of my children,” Robert Morgan said.
She had never heard her father use such language. Take another of his children? What did he mean?
