“Was your life good there? You had friends?” his mother asked working her long gray hair into a braid.
“Yes.”
“Did you have sausages and ice cream and chocolate?”
“Not all at one time.” Eden’s laugh blended with his mother’s and made a cheerful sound.
Brant’s insides clenched deep in the pit of his stomach. The odd sensation made him feel sick with longing for the simple joy of hearing Eden happy.
“I miss chocolate.” His mother’s words disturbed him.
“Brant can’t get you any from the Sweet Grove trading post?” Eden’s gaze met his.
“He doesn’t go to the trading post.”
His mother never expressed any regrets of leaving her life behind with the white men. She always seemed happy. He had known her love of chocolate. The twinge of guilt for not providing that small treat for her made him sad. He had to wonder if Eden would have regrets for staying with him. Would there be things she missed? She used to tell him she’d be happy to live anywhere with him. Had five years changed her to the point there was no going back?
His mother finished tying a leather strip at the end of her thick plait of hair and took Eden’s hand. “Charlie is a beautiful child, Eden. Is he a good son?”
“He’s a very good son.” Eden smiled.
“Then he is like his father.” Brant’s mother glanced his way.
Eden’s gaze lifted as well. “Lucy, my son is every bit like the man who fathered him. He’s polite, considerate of others and loving.”
“And someday, he will grow to be a brave and generous man too.” Lucy added.
“Yes, I’m sure he will,” Eden agreed still looking up at Brant.
Brant stared into Eden’s blue eyes, trying to remember not to trust anything she said. She didn’t intend to come back to him. He had to assume that given the chance, she’d run from the life he wanted with her and his son.
“Come, let us have something to eat before the rain,” Lucy worked at getting a bowl of soup from the pot hanging over the fire.
“Mama,” Charlie yelled, returning to them.
Brant watched with an ache in his heart. He finally saw himself in the boy with the display of youthful vibrancy, the sheen of black hair and the adoration for Eden. The boy loved his mother. A pang of jealousy hit Brant for the way Eden had deprived him of experiencing the same affection from his son.
“You should see the canoe and the river,” Charlie exclaimed.
“I’ve seen both before.” Eden gave him a bowl. “Now, sit and eat while you tell me what you found so magnificent about it.”
“The water goes fast and the fish jump into the air in front of you.”
“Hmm, yes, I do remember that. One day, maybe you could try catching one with your bare hands.”
Brant grunted with annoyance. He had tried to impress Eden once by catching a fish. For his trouble, he had fallen face first into the water. He didn’t think it was possible to be humiliated more than by his clumsiness that day.
His mother laughed because she too knew the story. Her gaze shifted to him and then back to Eden’s giggles. It irritated him to have his mother enjoy a joke at what he felt an embarrassing moment in his life.
“It was not very funny,” he muttered, struggling with the many emotions he had colliding inside him.
“What isn’t funny?” Charlie asked. “Catching a fish?”
“No, falling in the cold water while trying.” He rose to his feet to go.
Eden’s gaze lifted to him. Her eyes glistened as if she were truly happy. When her delicious mouth moved, he almost didn’t hear the words that came out.
“Someone will appreciate his efforts,” she said, softly.
He always wanted to forget the foolish moments of his youth. Eden suddenly made him want to recall each one involving her. There were many from his attempts to impress her. He tried too hard to make her love him. After all that they had shared, her moving away had showed him he had failed miserably.
Brant let the matter drop. On outward appearances, anyone would think he had the upper hand with Eden. He’d brought her home to his village on his own terms. She had to do as he said or suffer consequences. However, while he always wanted to possess her like a prize, the best he ever managed was to let her have command of him. Adoring her with his heart and soul, he used to give in to her every whim. Unable to hurt her by taking away her son proved she was still in charge of his actions.
Once Sully joined them, Eden stayed quiet. The boys talked endlessly with a thousand questions about the differences in their backgrounds. Sully especially wanted to know about the white man’s world. Brant felt guilty for not educating his brother in regards to anything beyond their village.
Unable to sit, Brant paced anxiously, waiting to take Eden to his lodge. Catching her eye, hoping she’d understand his needs, didn’t work. She remained content listening to the boys and answering his mother’s questions about the city.
When his patience wore out, he marched around the fire and stopped next to his mother. “Charlie will stay with you tonight.”
“That will be good.” She hugged Charlie to her. “The boys need much more time than there is in a day to know each other and I don’t think they are ready to end their talk just yet.”
“Come.” Brant motioned for Eden to follow him.
“Where?” She got to her feet on her own when he should have helped her up. He knew the white customs. Eden had taught him manners.
He didn’t answer and prodded her along.
In the firelight, he had studied her features and tried to recall the texture of her skin. Long ago, he’d held her close enough to know the softness of her legs and the smoothness of her breasts. He loved everything about her touch, even the feel of her fingers folded around his.
“Our lodge.” He swung the flap up so she could enter.
She crossed the threshold.
“Where’s your wife?” She turned and faced him.
He put a hand up to the side of her face. Sliding his thumb over her cheek, he brushed her lips.
“If you’ve sent her away just to accommodate me, I won’t have it. Shouldn’t Sully have come here to sleep?”
“He sleeps where my son sleeps.” He slid his hand behind her head and pulled her to him. “You will sleep where my wife should.”
“And you?” Her voice squeaked. “Where will you be?”
“With my wife.”
Lowering his head, he captured her mouth, taking what he wanted before she could deny him. Plying her moist lips with a hunger he had never been able to satisfy, he crushed Eden’s slender frame to him as she squirmed in resistance.
“Brant, stop.” She wrenched her head to the side. “I won’t share your bed. I can’t do that with another woman’s husband.”
Digging his fingers into her pinned-up hair, he grasped her head. “I have said vows to only one woman in all my life, Eden.”
He watched her eyes widen as she absorbed the information.
“But Sully, his mother… He’s your son, is he not?”
“He is my brother. My mother had him several months after you were gone. Sully is short for Sullette.” He raked his fingers through her hair, unleashing it from the pins binding it.
“Your name?” Eden gave him a confused look.
“My mother’s maiden name.”
Eden’s golden locks cascaded in waves to her shoulders and down her back. He wound the soft tendrils around his hand.
“You’ve never taken a Pawnee wife?” Her voice made it sound unbelievable.
“You are my woman.” He grasped her head again and pressed his mouth to hers.
She kissed him back with all the passion he recalled as if it were yesterday. His heart beat harder, excited by her response and he held her tighter. She tasted sweet, honeyed by what she spread on a piece of bread at her meal. Ignoring her whimpers, he savored the flavor of her tongue with his own.
Eden’s wiggl
ing continued, stirring his lust. His body throbbed and his groin ached. He wanted her naked beneath him. His thoughts stayed on that course as he rolled his hands up and down her back and around to the front, searching for a way to release her clothing.
The buttons of her blouse gave his fingers trouble. Impatient and aggravated, he pulled at the thin fabric and a number of the tiny pearls snapped off. Her gasp of surprise didn’t stop him. He pulled at the blouse more, raking it off her shoulder.
“Brant, no,” she cried, as he kissed her skin.
Her plea brought him to a halt.
The one woman he wanted to possess owned his soul. The fire in her eyes, the puffs of her breath over his face, everything about her beckoned his Pawnee blood to take her without hesitation.
She stared at him for a few seconds and then leaned her face against his chest. Racked with emotional sounds, she clung to him.
“It’s been so long,” she cried.
When she looked up again, he kissed her gently.
She folded her arms around his head and he scooped her up. He held her cradled to his chest without breaking the kiss. Her fingernails dug into his hair and scratched at the back of his head.
For the first time since seeing her again, he felt there was something salvageable in their relationship.
Brant lowered Eden onto the pallet of furs and blankets making up his bed on the ground. He used to lay awake for hours thinking about her being there with him.
As he sucked at her lips, quenching his long denied thirst for her, endearments, confessions and declarations of love formed in his head. “Eden…”
“Brant, please.” Her words stopped his sentiments from flowing out.
He paused from the ravishment of her beautiful mouth and waited for her to speak. His heart ached with the love he had for her.
Her gaze lowered, laying the fan of golden lashes on her cheeks for a moment. When her gaze lifted to meet his, he saw her withdrawing from him.
“I don’t know you anymore.” She smoothed a hand over his chest. “I can’t pretend everything is the same between us.”
The unsure tone in her voice wasn’t enough of a deterrent. He’d not accept she didn’t want him. He’d never question if there were someone else she had grown close to because he no longer cared. She belonged to him and he’d do everything to make her love him.
Taking her mouth again, he tasted the salt of her tears and felt the quaver of her responsive lips. All he had ever dreamed of having was in his arms. He recalled every nuance of their lovemaking and the vibrant way she seduced him with her emotions. He had to make everything the way it used to be or he’d die of a broken heart.
Like a boy, overeager and impatient, he tugged at her chemise. Kissing the top swell of her breast and every inch of her neck, he jerked harder at her clothing.
Eden’s quiet repose stopped him completely. Lifting his head, he examined her tear-stained cheeks. In all his imaginings, he had believed she’d still want him. He didn’t have enough restraint to accept she’d be unwilling to ease his suffering.
She tried to get up, out from under him. He pushed her back to the mound of furs and captured her wrists, locking them in one hand to pin her down.
“Brant, please don’t force me.”
Ignoring her plea, he bowed his head and kissed her on the mouth. Dragging his lips across her cheek, he aimed for the pulse in her neck. Raising her skirt, he shoved his hand between her smooth thighs and massaged her warm flesh.
Out of control with lust, he cupped his hand against the thin cloth covering her sex.
“Don’t make me afraid of you,” she begged.
“Damn you.” He rose quickly.
In reaction to his swift retreat, Eden flinched.
He knelt, slipped his hand beneath her head and brought her to a sitting position. Holding her face, he stared into her tear-filled eyes. “I would never hit you, Eden. No one will ever hit you again, I promise.”
He hated how much pain she suffered at the hands of her father.
“I promise,” he repeated, brushing his finger over her damp cheek.
She stretched up and kissed him. Then pulling his hand to her partially concealed breast, she beckoned him closer with her other, outstretched arm. When he leaned, she folded her arm around his neck.
As if she forgave his irrational acts, she welcomed him into her embrace. In a few moves, she unlaced her chemise. He brushed the cloth aside and touched her naked breasts. Anxious, he lowered to enjoy the mounds of flesh.
Eden’s inhalation at the first touch of his lips to one of her nipples arched her up. He moved to the other, circling the pebble-tipped flesh with his tongue. Her stroking the back of his head calmed his concerns that she acted out of fear.
“You are sweet like the clover honey,” he murmured, knowing how she used to respond to gentleness.
The fluttering sound in her soft moans brought him up, kissing the hollow at the base of her neck. She raised a leg and rubbed it against his hip as he sucked on the pulse thumping beneath the delicate skin along her neck.
He lifted at the hips and reached between them to untie his britches. She moved her hand there as well. Her fingers wrapped his stiff shaft and the light touch sent shivers through him.
Then she moved her hand up against his abdomen, stroking it with her fingertips.
Quickly he dragged her skirt up, bunching it at her waist. In her movements, her under pants had slipped off her one leg and remained halfway down her other leg.
While his desperation often got the best of him, he wanted her to feel safe with him. “Tell me to stop and I will.”
He tried not to let her slow response upset him.
Her petting moved to his chest. “I won’t tell you to stop.”
The heat of her sex drew him downward. He lowered his hips and pressed his erection against the nest of short curls covering the opening. His short thrust breached the wet slit and he pressed farther.
Eden let out a small, almost frightened sound. Her rubbing at his sides pulled rather than tried pushing him away. He ground deeper, feeling the tightness and heat of her core.
When he lifted, Eden’s sharp inhalation reminded him not to rush, to have patience with her.
He thrust again, driving into her in one stoke. He bowed his head and caught her mouth on the next plunge. At first, her tentative kisses were short pecks mixed with gasps. Then her passion surfaced and she seemed to hunger for his mouth.
Her sensual undulation lacked timidity. Instead of small shifts relocating her limbs to new locations against him, she drew her legs back and raked her boot heels against the back of his thighs. She clawed at his back, digging her nails into him hard.
Wild and uninhibited, she voiced her needs. “Harder,” she cried out.
Her sex constricted on his shaft. Friction from his rapid thrusts sent heated threads of tension through him. His scrotum tightened. And as his seed flowed, his excitement grew at the thought of seeing her belly swollen with his next child.
Once he had spent himself into her, he pushed up. He hovered over her, staring into her sated gaze. She had matured and her sexual innocence was gone. This wasn’t the woman he had made love to years before.
How many men had she lain with?
The thought that other men had touched her angered him. The way she first refused and then gave in was the act of a woman who knew how to wield sex over a man as if she were a whore.
He stood up to distance himself from both Eden and the angst of his upsetting, chaotic emotions.
“What’s wrong, Brant?” Eden sat up.
He pulled his britches up and fastened them as he stared at her open legs, the smooth white of her thighs disappearing under the bunched-up skirt. Her chest heaved with each breath, thrusting out her creamy breasts capped by her softened nipples. She had all the power, and it frustrated him.
“Stay in this lodge if you know what’s good for you.” He went to the opening.
“W
here are you going?”
He flung the flap of the lodge door out of his way and stepped outside.
“Brant?” Eden called him.
Slapping the weathered hide back in place over the doorway, he cut Eden off.
His father, Blue Wolf, appeared out of the shadows, surprising him. “We missed you on the buffalo hunt.”
“I had something to do.” Brant rubbed the new stubble on his face.
“Getting your woman?”
“And my son.”
“Why is it you brought them here?”
“They belong to me,” Brant answered, insulted by his father’s lack of compassion or at least understanding.
“Is that the only reason? You had a wolf pup once and when he began to wander off to be with his own kind, you didn’t make him stay.”
“This is different.” Brant kicked the toe of his moccasin in the dirt and confessed. “I have always needed Eden. These years without her have been the most miserable ones I could have ever lived.”
“Have you told her that is why she is here?”
“It is of no importance to her. She left me once. I will not allow her to do so again. It may be too late to have her affection but I can have my son’s and she will stay because of him.”
“This could cause trouble with the settlers if they hear you hold a white woman and her son captive in our village.”
“He is my son, a half-breed. No one cares about a half-breed.”
“Are you speaking about the boy or maybe you are feeling sorry for yourself?”
Blue Wolf always seemed to know what was in Brant’s thoughts. Brant wanted to argue that he was wrong, but the years without Eden’s love had crushed his spirit. All he ever remembered was how the people at the trading post treated him. None of it bothered him at the time, because of Eden. Her loving kindness held magic, and once that was gone, he saw how ugly the world was.
“I will not let him go,” Brant finally said, not answering his father’s question. “If you want, I will leave with them.”
“A woman bears a child from our seed, but that child is a part of her. Your son’s well-being will always come first with his mother and if we hope to keep a woman content with her life, we do not come between them. I would not take you away from your mother, any more than you could take your son from his,” Blue Wolf said in a defeated tone.
Captive Eden Page 3
