He drew her back more securely against him.
Her heart pounded.
She was dizzy with need of him.
Yet she had to force herself to deny this that he might be offering her tonight. She could not be this disrespectful to her aunt and uncle by giving herself fully to a man beneath their roof.
“Dancing Cloud, please,” Lauralee whispered, her voice trembling. When his hands slipped up and cupped her breasts through her chemise, she sucked in a wild breath of pleasure. Her knees almost buckled from the rapture that was taking hold of her senses.
“You said please?” Dancing Cloud whispered into her ear.
“Please don’t,” Lauralee forced out, wishing she did not have to deny him anything, anytime.
Dancing Cloud slipped his hands back down to her waist and drew her around to face him. “You do not wish to make love?” he said, searching her eyes.
“With all of my heart I do,” Lauralee whispered, reaching a hand to his cheek. “But we mustn’t. Darling, you are not well enough. And we must remember where we are. My uncle. He is only across the hall. What if he would discover us . . . ?”
“You are right,” Dancing Cloud said, wincing when straightening his shoulder. “But you came to the room. If not to make love . . .”
She placed a finger to his lips. “Shh,” she whispered. “I came to be with you. To lay beside you. To tell you how much I love you. And to tell you how anxious I am for us to make love again. I have so missed being with you in that way. Am I a hussy for hungering for that part of our relationship? Before I met you I so feared it.”
“You are a woman with womanly needs. Never allow yourself to feel that is wrong,” Dancing Cloud said. He took her by the hand and led her to the bed. “Lie down with me. Let me hold you. Soon we will go farther with our feelings again. It is good to know that your hungers match my own.”
When he stretched out beside Lauralee, she turned to him. She leaned up on her knees and her hair tumbled over her shoulders as she gently kissed him near his wound. She could hear him take a quick intake of breath and could feel his heart throbbing hard as she continued giving him kisses across his massive chest.
When she felt something warm and hard against her thigh she scarcely breathed. It was obvious that she had stirred feelings within him that could hardly be denied.
Dancing Cloud reached his hands to her breasts and stroked them. His thumbs circled her nipples, causing them to harden. He leaned up on an elbow and led one of them between his lips. His tongue swirled around it, his lips nipping.
“I didn’t mean to cause this,” Lauralee whispered, her face blushed hot with want. She held her head back and sighed when she felt his fingers caressing her throbbing center.
When she could take no more, she drew away from him. “We truly mustn’t,” she whispered. “Dancing Cloud, you can’t be strong enough. And my uncle . . .”
He yanked her down beside him and turned to her. His lips sealed any more denials as he kissed her with a frenzy of kisses. His hand led his hardness to where she opened so willingly and quickly to him.
She sank into a chasm of desire, his kiss stealing all quarrel and reason from her.
Feverishly, she raked her fingers down his spine and along his hips. When he entered her she shuddered pleasurably and gripped his hips lightly, abandoning herself to the torrent of feelings that swam through her.
Dancing Cloud ignored the pain that was gripping his insides, his mind escaping in the pleasure that he was receiving from his o-ge-ye. He made love to Lauralee slowly, in a long and leisurely fashion. His lips brushed her throat, then again went to her lips.
Their embrace was long and sweet as one kiss blended into another, the slow thrusting of his pelvis bringing them closer and closer to that wondrous brink of wild abandon.
Lost in a reverie of need, Lauralee moved her hips with his, her blood quickening. Her senses swam as she felt a drugged passion seize her. She was soon gripped in an intense pleasure that spread through her in a delicious tingling heat. She moaned throatily against his lips, his own groan of pleasure revealing to her that he had reached the same summit of pleasure as she.
Their bodies quaked.
Her hips moved and rocked. Her pelvis was pressed hard against his, gyrating, pulling him even more deeply into the velvet warm walls of her femininity.
And when their bodies subsided, and the pleasure was spent, Dancing Cloud drew away from her. He pushed her hair from her face. Her eyes were sheened by moonlight as she peered with intense love at him.
Then when he grabbed suddenly at his shoulder and rolled quickly onto his back, panting, Lauralee became frightened and moved to her knees beside him. She clearly saw the pain in his eyes as he looked up at her.
“Dancing Cloud, we truly shouldn’t have,” she whispered, her eyes wavering into his. “Oh, darling, look now how you are in pain. It’s all my fault. I should’ve stayed in my bed.”
“I am in your bed,” Dancing Cloud said, taking her hand, drawing her down beside him. “And what a lovely bed and room it is. Are you certain you wish to go and live in a log cabin in the mountains? Will that be enough for you?”
“Wherever you are, that is where I want to be,” Lauralee said, cuddling close. “Whether it is in a cabin, or in a castle, if you are there, that is where you will find me.”
“When I leave Mattoon again I insist that you go with me,” Dancing Cloud said, turning to face her.
“As I plan to do,” she said matter-of-factly. She smiled at him. “Darling, do you think I would let you go on that journey without me after what has happened to you? You might be ambushed again. I want to be there for you.”
“And what if that Yankee should kill us both in the ambush?” Dancing Cloud said thickly.
“Then that is what fate has planned for us,” Lauralee said, moving closer. “Remember how you described being in the spirit world with your family? The next time you go, I want to be there with you, hand in hand.”
“It is destiny for us to be as one with each other,” Dancing Cloud said. He paused, then said, “Tell me again about this man named Paul Brown. I saw you kissing him. Are you certain your feelings are nothing for him?”
“You saw me kissing him because he forced me to,” she murmured. “You were too far away to see me shoving at his chest.”
“Then you have no feelings for the man?”
“How could you ask that? After what we just shared, surely you realize the depths of my feelings for you.”
He placed a finger to her chin and lifted her eyes to him. “We will leave Mattoon as soon as I am able to travel,” he said thickly. “That may take days, perhaps weeks. Will the Petersons tolerate my presence that long? Or should I go in the woods and make camp?”
“Heaven forbid!” Lauralee said, sitting up quickly. “I wouldn’t allow it. The Yankee. He’s surely out there somewhere, just waiting for the next opportunity to shoot you.”
Then she raised an eyebrow. “Except that when my uncle took me to the Byers Hotel with him to check on the man, we found that his clothes and belongings were missing,” she said.
Dancing Cloud moved as quickly to an elbow as his shoulder allowed and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
She just now remembered that he did not know about what had happened at Dr. Kemper’s, that the Yankee of his past was most surely the same Yankee of hers. Ironic as it may seem, it was no less true.
She told him everything, about all of her discoveries, and about the man trying to abduct her. She could see a seething hatred enter his midnight-dark eyes.
“Please don’t upset yourself,” she begged. “Darling, Clint McCloud must be long gone by now. Surely he fears what my uncle could have done with him should he be caught after having tried to abduct me. A trial would not be wasted on him. He would hang as quickly as one could blink their eye.”
“But he is still out there, somewhere,” Dancing Cloud said. “More the reason you will leave
with me when I leave Mattoon. I want to be the one protecting you from this evil white man.”
Lauralee cuddled closer, her eyes wide. She had never thought that her nightmare when she was five would follow her the rest of her life. She now recalled her uncle having said that Clint McCloud lived in North Carolina. If so, that was perhaps his destination even now.
That was also hers and Dancing Cloud’s destination, where Dancing Cloud made his home in the North Carolina mountains.
That thought totally terrified her.
Chapter 19
The passion of the fire, love,
What’er it finds, destroys.
—R. W. RAYMOND
Several days had passed and except for the constant fear of Clint McCloud jumping out at her, continuing his reign of terror, Lauralee felt that everything was finally right in her little world.
Her aunt had recovered as best that could be expected when someone had a heart condition.
She was able to leave her bed now and resume most of her normal activities.
Best of all was that her aunt was able to putter around in her flower garden and have tea with her lady friends at her favorite tea room and inn—Tomaso’s. She had even accepted that Lauralee was going to be leaving soon.
Lauralee’s Uncle Abner was embroiled in a new case, proving once again to the communities of Charleston and Mattoon that he was the best judge in Coles County. He had not said much about Lauralee’s decision to leave. But she had seen it in his eyes each time he looked at Dancing Cloud that his resentments for him still lay heavy on his heart.
Putting aside further thoughts of her uncle’s resentments, Lauralee was happy that Dancing Cloud was almost as good as new. She had encouraged him not to ride his horse again just yet. Today he rode beside her in her horse and buggy. He was at the reins. She was enjoying the outing with him as they took in the city of Mattoon.
“Isn’t it just a wondrous, glorious day?” Lauralee said. She repositioned her straw hat on her head, then retied the satin bow beneath her chin. “The sky is so brilliantly blue. The sun is so bright.”
Dancing Cloud shifted his gaze to her. “The true vision sits beside me,” he said, smiling.
His eyes raked slowly over her. The fully gathered silk dress that she wore complemented her thin waist and the gentle curve of her breasts where they swelled slightly above the low-swept bodice.
“I do want to look special for you, always,” Lauralee said, giving him a winsome smile. “Tell me about the dresses that I shall wear when I become as one with the women of your village. Are they beautifully beaded as are your moccasins? Are they soft? Your buckskin clothes feel like the petal of a rose to my fingertips. Will I also be wearing buckskin?”
“My clothes are like the petal of a rose?” Dancing Cloud asked, chuckling.
“Well, perhaps that is not the best of comparisons,” Lauralee said, laughing softly. “I am just anxious to know what to expect when I reach your village. What I will wear. What my duties as a wife will be.” She blushed and lowered her eyes, then looked slowly up at him again. “I mean besides that which I will enjoy with you each night.”
“Each morning I will take you into my arms and give you a special loving,” Dancing Cloud said, his eyes dancing into hers. “The same as I will give you each night.”
Lauralee’s eyes brightened and she giggled. “And so that is all that we shall do, both you and I, the long day and night through?” she teased.
“That could be arranged, o-ge-ye,” he said, his eyes slowly raking over her again. “When I look at you today, I see no dress. I feel your body with my eyes as though my fingers are there, caressing you.”
“Dancing Cloud, hush.” Lauralee squirmed uneasily on the seat of the buggy. “We are sightseeing today. We are supposed to be seeing the city of Mattoon. If you continue to talk like that, exciting me so, I shall want to bypass the city and go to a country road where you and I can . . .
“Lord,” Lauralee said, after pausing for a moment. “Where is my mind taking me this morning?” She gave him a laughing smile. “You are the cause. You and your ways of making me come alive inside. Please, Dancing Cloud. Please let’s not stray from the subject at hand. I need to know everything about your people and what I will be doing each day to allow me to become a part of their daily activities.”
“The clothes that you will wear?” Dancing Cloud said, shifting his gaze back to the street. He frowned when he found himself now amid the city where the buildings soared overhead on each side.
He looked uneasily from side to side, at the men walking along the thoroughfare on walks made of wood, or corncobs. When they saw him at the reins of the buggy, most stopped and gawked.
He tried to ignore their rudeness.
“If you wish, you can wear the types of dresses that you normally wear each day,” Dancing Cloud said. “Or you can wear what is normally the Cherokee women’s attire.”
He stiffened when a man on horseback rode past and looked him square in the eye as he called him a savage Rebel.
Dancing Cloud’s jaw tightened with anger and humiliation. “Sometimes the women’s clothes are made of the softest of doeskins,” he continued, trying not to make Lauralee uncomfortable by showing his humiliation over the man’s comments. “Or they might choose to wear cotton skirts and blouses. It will be of your own personal choice, o-ge-ye. You can wear what will make you the most comfortable.”
Lauralee half heard what he was saying. She had heard the man’s comments. It took all of her willpower not to have Dancing Cloud stop the carriage so that she could run after that man and tell him a thing or two about her Cherokee fiancé.
But she knew that those who might see Dancing Cloud as the enemy surely also saw her as the enemy, for she was also from the South, a Rebel in her own right.
She had surely only received a more pleasant treatment because of her uncle’s reputation in the city. Everyone knew that he would not stand for his niece suffering any verbal abuse.
Even if her father had fought against the North during the war.
Dancing Cloud was in deep thought now. He knew that he could do nothing about protecting his pride while he was among the white community. He was one man against a whole city. One false move on his part and they would have a reason to imprison him. Until he left Mattoon he must walk lightly and speak carefully.
The important thing, above defending his pride and proud name of Cherokee, was to return to his people, to lead them.
“We shall leave on the morrow,” he blurted out. “When the sun rises along the horizon we shall already be gone from this city.”
Although it came as no surprise to Lauralee that he made this quick decision, she was taken aback by the actual suddenness of it. “Tomorrow?” she murmured, thinking about her aunt and uncle.
In truth, she hated having to say a goodbye not only to her aunt Nancy and uncle Abner, but all that they offered her. They lived a grand life in Mattoon. Had she decided to stay, she would have been part of that life and finally be accepted in the eyes of the community as someone with something more than the title of “orphan.”
She reminded herself that by leaving them she would have even more than all of those things put together.
Dancing Cloud. He was more to her than the sky, stars, and heavens! So she could most certainly do without the menial things that she at one time thought were most important to a person.
And she would cast aside her title of “orphan” while around his people. She would live each day to the fullest with her beloved Cherokee and only hope that the hurt that she may have inflicted on the Petersons might be replaced by something else their wealth could bring into their lives. They had gotten along quite well before she had come along. They would most certainly get along without her.
“The time has come for me to return to my people and for me to mourn for my father with them,” Dancing Cloud said thickly. “I would leave now except that this one more day of building my strength will gu
arantee that I am bodily able to take the long journey to my mountain.”
Lauralee pointed the way. She led Dancing Cloud past Brian’s Place Saloon, then down Western Avenue.
They rode past the magnificent Trinity Episcopal Church, then onward, past the lovely houses that lined Western Avenue.
They traveled at a leisurely pace until the houses lessened along the street. Lauralee motioned for Dancing Cloud to turn left and urged him to stop the horse and buggy at the corner of Western Avenue and 32nd Street.
As she stared up at the tall elm, she recalled the many stories that her father had told her about the “Lone Elm” in Mattoon, Illinois. She repeated the tale to Dancing Cloud.
She said that her father had told her that this tree had served the traveling pioneers well, not only as a landmark, but as a symbol of the strength and self-sufficiency of the many families crossing the prairie who stopped to rest in its shade.
As the elm had grown in size it was a memorable sight, standing alone in the midst of tall, waving blue stem grass.
After telling Dancing Cloud about the Lone Elm, they rode onward down 32nd Street and past several smaller houses. They stopped at a railroad track and waited for a “ballooning” smokestacked locomotive to go past.
They continued for only a few feet past the tracks when Lauralee motioned for Dancing Cloud to make a right on a small dirt road. They rode toward a great white fenced-in pasture in which several beautiful horses grazed and pranced. She had heard her uncle refer to this place as “The Stables,” where prized show horses were kept and sired.
Recalling her love of the Clydesdales in St. Louis, she wanted to see these horses up close so that she could pet them.
“There,” Lauralee said, pointing to the horses. “Let’s ride over there, Dancing Cloud. Oh, but I do love horses.”
Dancing Cloud’s own love of horses caused his eyes to search through those that were grazing amid an abundance of tall, green grass. His heart skipped a beat when his gaze locked on one horse in particular.
Wild Abandon Page 18
