Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “You mean the ceremony? You mean when we leave here, you go your way and I’ll go mine? Is that what you mean?”

  She nodded, not meeting his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Not on your life, woman.” She looked at him then, startled. “As far as I’m concerned, you and I are man and wife.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Travis. You don’t have to—”

  “Maybe I don’t have to, but you do. You think Cochise won’t hear about it if you stay at El Valle while I live at the Triple C?” He snorted and lay back down. “He’d hear about it within a week and you know it. Besides. He’ll be coming to pick out his horses and cattle this fall. Then you’ll be right back where you were. No, Dani. We’re married, you and I, and I intend to see we stay that way.”

  “But why, Travis? I don’t understand why you did it in the first place, much less why you’d want to stay married to me.”

  He’d been anticipating that question. No lie would do, but neither could he bring himself to tell her the complete truth. She wasn’t ready for that yet. It would be a long time before she would be at ease enough to accept his feelings for her. So he settled for other, lesser truths. Mainly because he wasn’t quite sure what the real truth was.

  “Partly because you needed me to marry you. Because Cochise expected it. I think Dee-O-Det knew all along what was going to happen. But mostly I did it because I wanted to.”

  Bemusement filled her mind as Daniella studied this man, her husband. Did he want a mistress for his home and a mother for Matt so badly he would marry someone like her? That didn’t make any sense.

  “Go ahead and say what’s on you mind,” Travis said.

  “What’s on my mind,” she answered slowly, “is how much I fear you’re going to regret this.”

  “I won’t regret it, Dani. Especially if you try a little, and meet me halfway. Now stop worrying, and trust me.”

  That’s easy for you to say, husband.

  Travis sat up and pulled off his boots, then held out his hand to her. “Come on. Get some sleep. You look as tired as I feel.”

  Daniella looked everywhere but at the hand he extended. Did he actually expect her to lie down next to him and sleep?

  “Just sleep, Dani.”

  Her cheeks burned. Had he read her mind?

  Still avoiding his gaze as well as his hand, she glanced at the crack around the buckskin door flap and heaved a sigh of relief. “No thanks,” she said. “It’s almost dark.”

  Travis dropped his hand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know I don’t sleep at night.”

  “Still? You slept all night on the trail a few times, as I remember.”

  “That was different.”

  “Yeah, I know. You slept with me.”

  “You can’t compare then with now.”

  “No, I guess not,” he answered. “Now we’re married. Husbands and wives do that, you know—sleep together.”

  Husbands and wives did more than that. Daniella felt her nerves stretch taut. “This afternoon you promised—”

  “I know what I promised,” he interrupted. “And I intend to keep that promise. Until you tell me you’re ready for more, bedtime is strictly for sleeping.”

  “Do you mean that?” she asked hesitantly, still unable to meet his gaze.

  “Yes, I mean it. Dani, you can’t go on catching snatches of sleep every now and then. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for the babies. You need a full night’s sleep, every night. I can’t promise you won’t ever have bad dreams again, but if you do, I’ll be here, right beside you, with whatever help I can give. You’ve got to try, Dani.”

  On that, she knew he was right. If she didn’t start getting a regular full night’s sleep soon, she’d go crazy. If she didn’t collapse first.

  Travis held out his hand again. “Trust me,” he said softly.

  Trust me.

  The words echoed in her head. She shouldn’t have to work at trusting him. He had never given her reason to doubt or fear him. She didn’t fear him. She should be able to lie down with him, offer him what any bride would offer her husband on their wedding night.

  She understood that while what happened between a man and wife was similar to what the warriors did to her, a caring husband would not hurt her, and would not press her too often to fulfill his needs. Travis would never resort to violence or cause her pain.

  She should do it. She should tell him she was ready to be a real wife. He deserved that much from her.

  When she tried to picture the act in her mind, she was surprised and grateful to realize she saw none of the terrible violence from before. Simply a man fulfilling his needs with his wife.

  Then from nowhere a sudden heat rushed over her, tingling across her breasts and down her belly to settle between her thighs. What was happening to her? A craving emptiness spread from the heat. Dear Lord, the shame of it!

  She turned abruptly away from Travis before he could see the wantonness in her eyes and grow disgusted with her.

  “Dani,” he said, clasping her arm.

  Fire spread from his fingers to her flesh.

  “Sleep, Dani. Let’s start out the way we mean to go on. With you sleeping beside me at night.”

  Daniella took a deep breath. Already those shameful feelings were fading. Thank God.

  Sleep, he said. Yes, she needed sleep. But God, if she woke up screaming just one more time, she was afraid she’d just keep on screaming and screaming and screaming.

  As tired as she was, she knew she’d probably fall asleep sometime during the night. At least Travis had already seen her at her worst.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she started to take his hand. Bugle beads tinkled in the silence. “I can’t lie down in this,” she thought aloud.

  Travis turned his back while she removed the borrowed clothes and donned her own dirty breeches and a clean shirt from her saddlebags.

  When she approached the blanket where Travis lay, he once again held out his hand toward her. Hesitantly, she took it and allowed him to pull her down next to him on the blanket. When she tugged to free her hand, he simply threaded his fingers through hers rather than let go.

  She lay there next to him, her blanket beneath them, his at their feet. It would get cold during the night. She should have started a fire.

  That was her last coherent thought. She never knew it when sleep and Travis Colton wrapped their arms around her.

  Travis was dreaming. He knew it, yet didn’t want to wake. The hot, throbbing dream had teased him many times since he’d met Dani. He relished it, for only in his dreams did she come so willingly into his arms. She felt so real, warm and vibrant against him, her lips soft and pliant. In his dream, she had no fear. She came to him eagerly, stunning him with her passionate response, making him so hard he hurt.

  Real. She was so real. Nothing had ever felt so perfect as her arms around his neck, the shape of her breast in his hand. He teased a nipple with his thumb. She gasped loudly in his ear.

  Loudly?

  Good God.

  Travis tore his mouth from hers, appalled to find himself suddenly awake, looming over Dani. The dim moonlight drifting through the smoke hole was barely enough to see, but see he did.

  No dream. Not this time. She was here, in his arms, her breathing as labored as his. She looked as stunned as he felt.

  “Dani, I…” What could he say? She hadn’t pushed him away yet. Was that a good sign? He swallowed. “Apparently even in sleep, our bodies know what should happen between us.”

  Daniella stared up at his shadowed face…our bodies know…But her mind didn’t. Her mind knew a dozen different fears, not the least of which was her body’s reaction to Travis’s touch. The tingling heat had started before she woke. How was she to stop it?

  He loomed over her, the moonlight on the back of his head creating a silver halo effect. He was waiting for something from her. But what? What was she to do, to say, while his hand still cupped her breast? It felt
good. Too good.

  Then she realized something else. Of all the things she feared—saying or doing the wrong thing, feeling things she was sure good girls don’t feel, being married to him, not being married to him, the mating act itself—she felt no fear of him. He hung over her in the dark, had total possession of her body; she lay helpless beneath him. Yet in her heart, and yes, her mind, she knew Travis would not hurt her.

  So why was she hesitating? This was her chance to prove, to him and herself, that she could be his wife. He’d said, our bodies know.

  With her heart thundering in her ears, she looked steadily at him and whispered, “Yes.”

  She felt him stiffen at her answer. “Yes?”

  She whispered again, “Yes.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t seem to breath. “Are you sure?”

  Sure? Daniella couldn’t remember the last time she’d been sure about anything. Even though she knew he would never deliberately cause her pain, she couldn’t help the question that rushed from her lips. “Will it hurt?”

  “No. God, no, Dani. I’d never hurt you.”

  She closed her eyes and prayed. “Then yes, I’m sure.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  When she looked up at him, she couldn’t help the nervous little smile on her lips. “Only a little, but not of you.”

  Still, Travis hesitated.

  “Please,” she said. “I want to do this.” For you. I want to do it for you. And for herself? No. For herself, she could live a lifetime without this physical joining. The heat, the yearning, the terrible restlessness generated by his nearness confused and frightened her. She didn’t need it. Didn’t want it.

  But she knew no man would keep a wife who wouldn’t mate with him. It was what wives were for. And if she knew nothing else, she knew she wanted to remain Travis Colton’s wife. “Please.”

  Travis’s heart raced. He hadn’t meant to make her beg, but God, he hoped she was sure. The way he felt just then, he didn’t know if he could pull away from her.

  Her fingers moved through the hair at his nape, sending hot shivers racing down his spine. He was lost. He pressed himself against her thigh.

  Her eyes widened. She stopped breathing.

  “Easy,” he whispered. God, he was ready to explode. Slow down, slow down. He brushed his lips across hers. “Easy. It’s all right.” At least, he hoped it would be all right. He hoped he could control himself enough to keep from ripping her clothes off. He hoped he could go slowly enough to bring her pleasure. He hoped he wouldn’t do anything to scare her. To bring back her nightmare.

  So many hopes. All dependent on his fast-disappearing control over his desires. He reached for the top button of her shirt and found his hand trembling. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman so much he trembled with it. Careful. Easy.

  But when he kissed her, it wasn’t careful or easy. It was raw and deep and filled with months of yearning, of wanting and not being able to touch.

  Lord, how was he going to keep from scaring her? He was scaring himself.

  He tried to ease the kiss, but deepened it, instead. When he finished the buttons on her shirt, he pushed the fabric aside and raised his head. Her skin gleamed pale and creamy in the darkness. The dark centers of her breasts pointed at him, taunting him, daring him.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered. “So beautiful.” He bent his head and touched his tongue to one sweet nipple.

  Daniella gasped and arched from the ground. Fire and lightning shot from his tongue through her breast, and gathered between her legs. She lost herself to Travis and his magic.

  Her breast filled and swelled. Her nipple tightened, begged. For what, she didn’t know.

  Then Travis took the aching peak into his mouth and suckled, and she knew. This was what she wanted.

  Vaguely, she felt him unfasten and tug off her pants. But her senses were totally centered on what his mouth was doing to her breast.

  At her other breast, she felt his hard, calloused hand. Then the hand drifted lower, over the mound of her belly.

  The mere reminder of her child-bearing state should have cooled the heat in her veins. That it didn’t, scared her. How was she to control this terrible pressure building inside her?

  Then his hand moved lower, lower. No! He couldn’t touch her there. If he did, he would feel the embarrassing, shameful wetness she couldn’t control. Desperately she clenched her thighs together. But when his knee nudged between hers, she couldn’t help but accommodate him.

  Lower, lower, went his hand, until he touched the very center of the frightening fire consuming her. His hard yet gentle fingers touched, explored, probed. Of their own accord, her hips began to rotate.

  His mouth left her nipple. She moaned in protest. The cool night air prickled her moist flesh. Travis kissed his way across her chest to lavish equal attention on her other breast. His breath was hot against her sensitive skin.

  “You taste so sweet,” he whispered.

  He made as if to leave her breast altogether.

  “No,” she gasped. She threaded her fingers through his soft hair and held his head in place.

  She was torn between the fire caused by his mouth at her breast and that from his hand between her legs. The pressure inside her built to a nearly unbearable level. How much more could she stand?

  Then he moved and lay between her legs. He took his hand away. She whimpered. His mouth left her breast. She moaned, suddenly too weak to hold him there.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered.

  All right? How could it be all right? She was dying. When his mouth took hers again, a tremendous heat pressed between her legs. Daniella stiffened. This was it. He was going to do it. If she closed her eyes now, would she see Travis, or her nightmarish tormentors?

  She kept her eyes wide open.

  And then he was pressing into her, slowly, purposely, steadily. God, it was…it was like nothing she’d ever imagined. He filled her completely. There was no pain. Only heat, and so much more pressure, more pleasure, she knew she would soon explode.

  Helplessly, she closed her eyes. A wide, dark chasm waited for her. She could feel herself slipping toward it, being pushed, led, by each thrust of Travis’s hot, hard flesh.

  The chasm awaiting terrified her. When would Travis finish? Would he stop before she exploded from these frightening feelings? Before she slipped off the edge of reality and into that terrifying darkness?

  It was too much. The heat. The pressure. The restless, empty yearning. And yes, the heart-pounding excitement. The profound, tingling pleasure.

  This wasn’t right, wasn’t normal. She shouldn’t be feeling these things. Suddenly from out of that dark chasm loomed her father’s accusing eyes. Eyes that fairly screamed, whore!

  “No!” More terrified than she’d been on the night of her attack, she opened her eyes and pushed against Travis’s shoulders with all her strength.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Travis, his eyes closed, the better to savor the exquisite feel of Dani’s silken depths, felt the change in her almost at once. At first he thought she was with him, frantically seeking that same pinnacle of pleasure he now raced toward. But when he opened his eyes and saw her face, stark and drawn with sheer terror, he cursed himself.

  She pushed against his chest and lunged beneath him. That one thrust of her hips sent him over the edge to a violent climax.

  Daniella knew she was crying, but couldn’t help it. She’d been so close to that deep, black chasm, so close to shooting off over the edge. Too close.

  When Travis stiffened and shuddered above her, within her, she knew it was over, but still she could not stop the tears.

  She turned her head away so that as he braced himself above her—how odd, his arms were trembling—he wouldn’t see her tears.

  When his harsh breathing slowed, he withdrew from her trembling flesh and rolled to his side. Even as she sagged with relief that he was finished with her, she nearly cried out in protest at the
raw, throbbing emptiness he left in his wake.

  Travis lay beside her, feeling as if her silent tears were being ripped from his soul. “I’m sorry, Dani.”

  She didn’t respond.

  God, how could he have done this to her? He’d given his word not to rush her. He was a fool. A greedy, horny fool.

  And a tired one, too. He’d ridden like the devil to reach the stronghold, then fought Loco. He’d left his life’s blood in the soil, his life force deep inside Dani.

  His last thought before falling into exhausted sleep came from out of nowhere. You’re not only a fool, but not much of a man, either. A real man satisfies his woman.

  Her tears should have been tears of pleasure. He knew they weren’t.

  Daniella woke to the steady beat of a drum. It was barely light enough to see inside the wickiup. Something heavy pressed down on her shoulder, and the drumbeat quickened.

  An instant later she realized it was no drumbeat, but a heartbeat thundering in her ear. Travis’s heartbeat. The weight on her shoulder was the arm he had draped around her. And she found herself wrapped around his long, hard body like bark on a tree. One arm encircled his broad, furry chest, her head lay nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, and—She gasped and jerked her knee away from where it rested intimately over his private parts. His hard private parts.

  She would have rolled away, but the arm around her back and over her shoulder held her firmly in place. The scratchy blanket covered them both.

  “Let me go.”

  “Dani—”

  “Please. Just let me go.”

  He didn’t. “Look at me.”

  She couldn’t.

  “Dani.” He cupped her cheek and turned her head to face him.

  Involuntarily, her gaze travelled up his throat, over his beard-roughened jaw, to his eyes.

  “Dani, I…” His Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow. His gaze fell from hers. “God, I’m sorry. I promised you time, then rushed you into something you weren’t ready for. I know after last night you have no reason to believe me, but I swear it won’t happen again. Not until you convince me you’re ready.”