She followed his lead, stretching out beside him.
When another great clap of thunder shook the ground beneath her, she jumped with alarm and welcomed a comforting arm around her waist, yet knew the dangers in even this minimal contact.
She closed her eyes tightly, to try and block out the desire that made her ache for the feel of his lips on hers, his skin against hers.
And, as if he read her mind, he slowly turned her to face him, and she allowed it....
Chapter 10
In one another’s being mingle;—
Why not I with thine?
—SHELLEY
His long lean fingers weaving through Elizabeth’s hair, Strong Heart drew her lips to his. Never had she felt such bliss as when he began kissing her, his free hand at her waist, urging her closer to him, pressing her hard against his body—which was now nude, the blanket having dropped away from him.
Her senses reeled as he prolonged the meltingly hot kiss, his hand skillfully unfastening her dress at the back. She watched, feeling as if she were in some sort of magical trance, as he leaned away from her and slipped the dress over her shoulders, and down the full length of her.
She did not protest when he continued, not even when she was totally disrobed and could relish the feel of his skin on hers as he again drew her fully against him.
His hands were on her flesh, searching, caressing, fondling, causing Elizabeth’s breath to catch in her throat. Just when she thought she could bear no more, Strong Heart’s lips explored her body for her most sensitive pleasure points.
She stretched out on her back and closed her eyes, giving herself up to the rapture, fighting off the urge to tell him to stop—tell him that what she was allowing was surely wicked.
All rational thoughts she easily cast aside, having never been lectured against this beautiful thing that was happening between herself and the man she loved.
Her mother had not been there to explain this side of life to her.
Her father had never been able to speak of such things around her.
What she had learned had been from novels, and now, tonight, Strong Heart was her true teacher.
And, ah, how skilled a teacher he was. His tongue and lips were like flames against her flesh, scorching . . . burning. Desire rose high within her as he showered heated kisses over her taut-tipped breasts, his mouth sweet and hungry as he then kissed her lips with a lazy warmth that left her weak.
And then she became aware of something else. A thick shaft resting against her thigh, pulsing it seemed, with a life of its own.
Curious, she drew her lips away from Strong Heart’s and peered down at him, blushing when she gazed upon this part of a man that she had never seen before.
She was not as embarrassed as she was intrigued.
She slowly reached a hand toward the swollen shaft, Strong Heart’s fingers circling hers, guiding her hand to his throbbing member.
“Touch it,” Strong Heart said huskily, his heart thundering within his chest, desire filling him now as never before in his life. “Caress me. There you will find the center of my passions . . . my passions aroused by you, my la-daila. Only you.”
Her pulse racing, every nerve ending within her feeling the exquisite tension of the moment, on fire with needs that were new to her. Elizabeth looked shyly up at Strong Heart.
Then, without losing contact with his eyes, she circled her fingers around the thickness of his manhood.
She was fascinated at how when his lean, sinewy buttocks began to move, he caused his manhood to move within her fingers.
But this seemed to cause too much pleasure for Strong Heart, for too soon he moaned throatily, then placed his hands at her shoulders and urged her away from him.
He drew her against him again, cradling her in his arms, the heat of his passion now pressing into her abdomen.
Holding her tightly, he turned her to lie again on her back. Brushing some strands of her hair back from her brow, he gazed at her with a look of possession in his eyes. “My love for you is new, yet strong,” he said passionately. “My la-daila, tell me that it is the same for you.”
“I have never loved before,” Elizabeth said, pleasure spreading anew through her body as his fingers gently kneaded her breasts. “But I know it, now that I am experiencing it.”
She framed his handsome face between her hands and drew his lips close. “Yes, Strong Heart,” she whispered. “Although new to me, my love for you is strong. It steals my breath away, this love I have for you. It is a wonderful feeling, as if I am suddenly wrapped in a cocoon of deliciously warm cotton, my whole body responding to yours. You are lying with me in this cocoon, your body awakening mine to pleasure.”
She clung to him as once again he kissed her. She felt a soft probing at the juncture of her thighs—something hot, something wonderful, and then she understood exactly what was trying to make entrance where no man had been before: His manhood.
One of his knees moved her legs apart, and then again she felt the probing. She closed her eyes tightly and clasped her arms around Strong Heart’s neck, opening herself to him, making it easier for what he sought. Yet he pulled away, stopping what he had begun and she had agreed to.
Elizabeth’s eyes opened in surprise as Strong Heart rolled away from her, his hands still at her waist, turning her on her side to face him.
He gazed at her naked splendor, his eyes filled with a drugged passion, then he looked into her eyes.
“Say that you want me,” he said, tracing the line of her jaw with his finger. “I must hear you say it, before our bodies become as one. It is important to know that you understand this that we do, and want it as badly, as I. I want you to love me forever, my la-daila. Not just tonight.”
“I’m not sure what want is,” Elizabeth said, innocently. “As I said earlier, I’ve never been in love before.”
“Listen to your body—the ache, the passions aroused within it,” Strong Heart said, his one hand now at the core of her womanhood, slowly caressing it with his fingertips. “Do you feel it? The passions that need to be answered with mine?”
Desire was shooting through Elizabeth as his fingers so skillfully awakened her body to even newer sensations. She closed her eyes and threw her head back, sighing.
“Yes,” she whispered. “The passion. Oh, such passion. I do feel it. Please, oh, please. I do need you, Strong Heart. Forever I will need you.”
Strong Heart drew her beneath him. He bent down and kissed her, his palms moving softly and arousingly over her as he once again parted her legs with his knee and began pressing his manhood slowly inside her yielding folds.
Gently he entered her. When he reached that shield that stopped his entrance, he held her tenderly to him and kissed away her pain as he made the plunge that finally made her wholly his.
The pain was only brief, causing Elizabeth’s body to wince, and then the pain smoothed out to something deliciously sweet.
She twined her arms about Strong Heart’s neck and circled her legs around him, locking them at the ankles, and rode with him, taking from him all that he offered, his strokes within her a steady rocking movement now.
As Strong Heart’s breathing quickened, he moved his mouth from her lips and pillowed his cheek against her full bosom. He closed his eyes and plunged ever more deeply within her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips, pulling her tightly against him.
The soft, melting energy was warming him, spreading throughout his body.
Overcome by the unbearably sweet pain, Elizabeth began rolling her head from side to side, the whimperings that came to her ears, her own. She trembled with excitement as Strong Heart began sucking one of her nipples, then flicked his tongue around its hardness.
She drew in her breath sharply and gave a little cry as he gave one last, hard thrust, his manhood filling her—oh, so magnificently filling her—causing the passion to spill over within her.
She strained her hips up at him when she felt a great sh
uddering in his loins, thinking that surely meant that he had also reached the same pinnacle of ecstasy that she had just climbed.
Breathing hard, Strong Heart’s body subsided exhaustedly onto hers. He lay there for a long moment with her, stroking her womanhood, that still pulsed from the aftermath of her rapture.
And then he rolled away from her. His hands found the soft swell of her breasts. She arched toward him, her parted mouth and closed eyes an invitation to kiss her again.
With a groan he pulled her against him and kissed her, their tongues touching, their bodies straining together.
As she clung to Strong Heart, his kiss dizzying her, Elizabeth moved her body sinuously against his, feeling his renewed desire as his swollen shaft once again pressed into her warmed flesh.
In what seemed a dream, Strong Heart had her positioned above him and magnificently filled her again with his powerful need. As she straddled him, leaning back, her red hair streaming long and gleaming down her back, she rode him as he lifted himself into her with his thrusts. She awakened anew to the smoldering desire that she had discovered tonight with this man that she adored—that she loved.
As the rain poured against the tent and the thunder boomed, shaking the very earth beneath them. Strong Heart reached for Elizabeth’s waist and urged her beneath him again. As he entered her and began his steady strokes, they once again found paradise together, their bodies locked together in a fierce, fevered heat.
And then they lay side by side, their hands entwined, their breaths mingling as they stared with bliss into each other’s eyes.
“You now understand the meaning of want?” Strong Heart whispered, his one hand gently caressing one of her breasts.
“Yes,” she breathed, her face flushed from the drunken pleasure that she had just experienced. “Oh, yes. I understand. Oh, so very much, my darling.”
“Your needs were answered . . . fulfilled?” he prodded. He could feel her tremble sensually when he flicked his tongue out to again taste the sweetness of her breast.
“Yes, yes,” she said, shivering with delight when he moved to his knees and bent over her, kissing the pleasure points of her body. “You are a masterful lover. So . . . so . . . very skilled.”
She wove her fingers through his long, brown hair and brought his lips to hers. She kissed him softly, then sighed languorously when he moved away from her and lay on his back beside her.
“Come,” he said, beckoning with a hand toward her. “Lie within my arms. Let me sing you to sleep, my la-daila. Listen. Relax. Enjoy. Sleep and dream of this man who loves you.”
Smiling sleepily, Elizabeth snuggled into the warm nest of blankets with him. She moved into his arms and lay close to him, having never felt so much at peace with herself and her world.
Chapter 11
Too late I stayed—forgive the crime,
Unheeded flew the hours.
—WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER
Elizabeth’s eyes flew open and she bolted to a sitting position. Then she paled and drew a blanket around her nakedness as she slowly looked around her, her sight stopping on Strong Heart. She remembered the previous evening as she looked at him lying so close beside her, his breathing slow as he soundly slept, his blanket having fallen aside.
Elizabeth could not deny the passion that flooded her when she regarded his nude body, seeing that part of him that had made her body thrill with pleasure.
Her heart beat wildly at the memory, yet now she regretted her wanton behavior with Strong Heart.
Last night it had seemed so right.
Today—she was confused about how she should feel!
She loved Strong Heart, yet a part of her tormented her, telling her that what she had done was wrong.
What she had done had surely been because she was under his spell. Strong Heart’s presence had bewitched her from the moment they had met.
Even now, she felt it, the way he made her feel—oh, this wasn’t her!
He turned on his other side, his face now away from her, his breathing still, even, and soft, indicating that he was still asleep. Elizabeth recalled something elsehow he had said that he would never allow her to return home. How he seemed to want total possession of her.
She wanted nothing more than to be with him, forever. Yet there was this thing called “freedom” that nagged at her mind. She did not want to be anyone’s captive. She wanted him to understand that if she stayed with him, it was because she had decided to—not because he had made the choice for her.
Yet, he had seemed so determined in his decision, she saw no other option but to try and escape, even if it meant losing him. And the special love that he had introduced her to.
As her gaze lingered on his muscular body, every beat of her heart told her that she wanted to stay with him.
Yet these strong feelings for him were another reason she must try and escape from him. She did not see how a love between them could work. She began crawling on her knees, gathering her clothes into her arms. Then she scurried outside where she could dress without awakening him.
As she slipped into her clothes, she looked around her, and was glad to see that the morning mists had vanished. The sun was clearing the horizon, the dew sparkled on the grass.
She peered warily into the depths of the forest, a rush of fear stopping her. She wondered that even if she did escape from Strong Heart, could she, in truth, find her way back to Seattle?
There were no true roads. There weren’t even any paths. And she would be at the mercy of all the animals roaming the land, four-legged and two-legged.
The thought terrified her, yet she saw no other choice but to take her chances.
Her future must be hers, not something planned and mapped out by someone else.
Finally she was fully clothed. She groaned as she glanced down at her silk dress and saw how wrinkled and stained it had gotten on her flight from Seattle.
And it was less than suitable for the return journey. Its yards of silk would constantly impede her movements. It was not the attire to wear while riding a horse.
“A horse,” she whispered to herself, blanching. “I must steal his horse.”
She glanced back guiltily at the tent. If she stole the horse, Strong Heart would be stranded without any transportation.
She set her jaw. It would serve him right! He had not thought of her welfare when he had abducted her. Nor would she his!
Relieved that the air was warm, that at least in her favor, Elizabeth began moving toward the roan that grazed close beside the river. When she reached the lovely animal, she grabbed for the reins, then she felt a movement behind her.
Turning with a start, she gasped when she saw Strong Heart running after her, having not taken the time to dress when he had found her gone. She watched his muscular, copper body and recalled with a rush of passion how it had felt to be pressed against it. Then she shook herself free of her trance and again grabbed for the horse’s reins, knowing that this was perhaps the only chance, ever, for her to win her freedom.
Her fingers worked clumsily with the knot of the rawhide reins, unable to untie them.
She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Strong Heart lunge for her. Her breath was momentarily knocked out of her when he threw her onto her back on the ground.
“You leave me?” he said, holding her wrists to the ground as he straddled her. He thrust his face into hers, peering down at her angrily. “Why do you? You professed to love Strong Heart. You professed to need me!”
Elizabeth did not know how to explain to him why she was leaving him, for deep inside, where her desires dwelled, she knew that she was going against everything that her heart was telling her to do.
The sudden screech of a hawk overhead, and its loud flapping of wings as it dipped low, barely missing Strong Heart’s head, caused him to flinch and loosen his grip on her wrists.
Taking advantage of his loss of concentration, Elizabeth jerked her wrists free and gave him a hard shove on his chest.<
br />
Wild-eyed, she watched him fall away from her. Then he grabbed her at the waist, bringing her along with him as he rolled threateningly close to the river.
“Let me go!” Elizabeth cried, struggling to get away from him.
But he was determined not to let her go. He rolled her over and started to straddle her again, then lost his balance and started slipping sideways into the water. At the last moment he grabbed her hand, pulling her into the water with him.
Stunned by the spill and the intense cold of the water, Elizabeth’s wits were momentarily stolen away. When she regained her bearings, she found herself floundering just beneath the surface of the river, the sun pouring through the water like bright lamplight.
A muscular arm circled around her waist. She tried to pry it away, then rose with Strong Heart to the surface, coughing fitfully. He held her close to him as he stood, his feet planted firmly on the rocky bottom of the shallows. She again struggled to get free, slapping at his arms and chest.
“I can’t believe this!” she shouted, coughing and gasping for air. “Let me go, do you hear? Haven’t you done enough?” A shiver coursed through her. “I’m freezing. Let me out of this water!”
“Not until you tell me that you are sorry for planning to leave me,” Strong Heart said, his grasp strong as steel, his face leaning into hers. “Only then will I let go of you.”
“You will have to hold me in this water until it freezes over then,” Elizabeth cried, wiping wet strands of hair back from her eyes. She shivered and shook and her teeth chattered from the frigid cold.
Strong Heart’s eyes bored into hers. He saw how purple her lips were, but he still would not allow her to leave the water.
“When the waters turn to ice in the dead of winter, then both of us shall become lodged within it,” Strong Heart said stubbornly. “I mean to have you. And I shall.”
He lowered his face closer, smiling. “You are already mine, you know—body and soul. Why do you fight it? It is useless, this decision of yours to turn your back on Strong Heart. Because I know that it is not what you truly want. I shall not allow it. Ever!”
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