He wanted to make love to her. He had to. Edmund Beale be damned.
He touched her bare arm. "Leah . . ."
She turned to him, her eyes round with fear . . . with desire . . . "Harrison, please. Please don't say anything." She raised her hands, letting them fall to rest on his shoulders. "If you talk, if you make me think, I won't be able to do this. And I want to. I know that now. I want to make love to you. Just once and it would carry me a lifetime."
"I won't force you." He barely brushed his lips against hers. "I wouldn't do that. I don't want you to do anything you'll regret later. We've already made too many mistakes you and I."
"If I do this, it will make me an adulteress," she said softly.
"I married you first." He kissed her again, nuzzling her cheek, breathing in the sweet scent of her. "You committed adultery against me, but I forgive you. I forgive you, sweet Leah."
Their lips met, their tongues intertwined and when she pulled back, they were both breathless. She wove her fingers through his wet, black hair. His scalp tingled, his lips burned.
"Touch me," Leah whispered. "You know how . . ."
Chapter Eleven
Harrison drew her into his arms, kissing the nape of her neck. She shivered with pleasure. This wasn't what she'd intended. She never meant to make love with Harrison. She never meant to betray her husband. But these last few days she'd been so confused by her feelings for Harrison. And then the shipwreck . . .
She'd almost lost him again.
Harrison was touching her now, his fingertips glancing over her chilled flesh making her warm. She couldn't think rationally. She knew this was wrong. Edmund was her husband, no matter what a bastard he was. She couldn't win here. There could be no happy ending. She and Harrison would find her son and husband and she would have to go with them. She could never see Harrison again, not after she found William.
But I'll have this one night to remember the rest of my days, she thought, dizzy with sensations that had slumbered too long. For one night I will know what it is to love and be loved.
She wrapped her arms around Harrison's neck looking up into his black eyes. "Just this once," she whispered, touching his lips with her fingertip. "Just once we can be lovers but then we have to be business partners again. You understand? Tell me you understand, Harrison."
"Whatever you want," he answered, his voice husky with desire for her. "I will agree to anything. Just let me love you ki-ti-hi. Let me touch you as I once touched you."
She threaded her fingers through his damp, thick hair and lifted to kiss him. "Yes, touch me. It's been so long, Harrison. So long since I felt your love."
He drew an invisible line with his fingertip along her jaw, down her chin, to the pulse of her throat, and then down between her breasts.
Leah shivered with excitement, letting her eyes drift shut. She still wore her shift, but the wet linen that separated their flesh seemed to intensify her pleasure rather than deter it.
She held tightly to him with one hand, while bringing the other down to span the width of his brawny chest. She had forgotten what it was to feel a man's hard, planed form. She'd had forgotten what a glorious thing a man's body could be, all muscle and sinew.
When Harrison cupped her breast with his hand, she straightened her back, offering herself up to him. "Yes," she whispered in his ear. "Touch me, Harrison. Make me forget the pain of life." He brushed her nipple with his thumb and she moaned.
"Let me take this off," he told her, his voice throaty. He rose on his knees, grasping her waist to guide her onto her knees. She couldn't take her gaze from his as they faced each other and he caught the hem of the wet shift and pulled it over her head.
"I'm not as young as I was," she heard herself say. Suddenly she was shy. She averted her gaze. "I've given birth. My hips are wider, my breasts—"
He cupped each of her breasts with his hands and brought his face down between them. "Your breasts are beautiful," he told her. "The last time we made love you were still a girl and I a lad. Now you're a woman, a woman only a man can appreciate."
She closed her eyes as he leaned and touched his lips to her breast, kneading it gently with one rough palm. When he caught her nipple between his teeth and tugged gently, she gripped his shoulders, arching her back. "Harrison, Harrison, how easily we forget." She leaned against him for support as the waves of silken pleasure washed over her.
Leah stroked his arm, then his shoulder, then his back with her hand, feeling every curve, every dip, every plane of his muscular form. She nipped at his ear lobe with her teeth. She kissed his temple, his cheek, the tiny cleft in his chin.
They were still on their knees facing each other when he lowered his hand down her belly to the soft nest of red curls between her thighs.
"Yes, she whispered. "Touch me there."
She touched the tip of her tongue to his shoulder and tasted the saltiness of his flesh. The heat of the campfire was making her too warm, that or his touch, but she didn't want to take the time to move back. This was all too perfect. She had waited too many years to be loved by a man.
When he slipped his fingers between her soft folds, she groaned, sinking her teeth gently into his shoulder. He nuzzled her neck, kissing her at the base of her throat as he stroked her.
"You remember," she whispered in his ear.
"I remember," he answered. "Too well. For too long."
Waves of pleasure were washing over her now. She swayed on her knees. "Let's lay down," she told him. "Before I fall over."
Their laughter mingled as he swept her into his arms and they lay down on the canvas sail that served as the floor of their shelter. They faced each other so that he could touch her, she could touch him, and they could look into each other's eyes.
Leah rested her head on her arm, stroking him with her hand. He was a larger man now than he had been. He was taller. His shoulders were broader. His muscles were harder and more defined. He was scarred by a gash on his chest, one across his stomach, and another high on his thigh.
"And where did this come from?" she asked in a silky voice. She traced the line of the scar on his inner thigh. "A jealous Indian maiden?"
"A jealous wild cat. Penn's Colony."
She brought her hand up higher, brushing her fingers beneath his soft sacs, cupping them. She stroked his long, hard, shaft. "And what of this?" She giggled huskily. She was too old for girlish timidity, the night was too short. "Where did this come from, oh great Shawnee warrior?"
"You," he answered, stroking her inner thigh. "You, my red bird. Only you."
She touched him boldly, stroking his hardness, reveling in the moan that escaped his lips. She had forgotten how good it felt to give pleasure to a man she loved.
"Ah, Leah. I dreamed of your touch so many nights alone beneath the stars. I dreamed you would come back to me."
She draped her bare leg over his and brought her lips to his. "Hush," she whispered as she kissed him deeply. Her fingertips glanced over his tumescent member. "Don't think about the past. Don't think about the future. Just think of me, Harrison, me here in your arms, now."
"Enough, enough," he moaned, pushing her hand aside. "You're rushing. I want this to last." He kissed her breast lightly. "I want to savor my pleasure and yours."
She laughed as he rolled her onto her back and caught her wrists pressing them into the sailcloth and the sand beneath it. Their wigwam had grown warm with the heat of the fire and of their lovemaking. It smelled of sea water, woodsmoke, and musky passion.
Harrison brought his mouth down hungrily on hers and she raised her hips, brushing them against him. "I'm not rushing, but I need you," she rasped. "I need you, Harrison. I cannot tell you how-long it's been."
"You're too anxious," he teased, pressing his hips to hers, taunting her. "Where is your patience?"
She grasped his buttocks, kneading the flesh. "It's been nine years since you and I have lain together. Haven't we waited long enough?"
His gaze met hers
and he smiled sadly. "That we have, ki-ti-hi. That we have."
As he lowered his hips slowly, she rose, parting her thighs. There was a tightness as he slipped into her, but he lowered his mouth to her cheek and whispered and then she relaxed. For a moment the two just held each other, molding to each other's bodies, remembering . . . But then the heat of their desire pushed them onward.
It was true that it had been nine years since Leah and Harrison last made love, but the moment they had first touched, it all came tumbling back to her. Now as they rose and fell together as one it was if only a day had passed instead of nearly a decade.
Now all the pain of the years didn't matter. Edmund didn't matter. Not even young William. Right now Leah needed to possess and be possessed. She needed to feel truly alive as she hadn't felt in so many years.
Leah rose to meet Harrison's thrusts again and again. Their tenderness turned to primal passion as they both drove to fulfill and be fulfilled.
Leah felt herself rising higher and higher on each crest of each wave of pleasure. They were no longer two separate bodies, but one. She felt her limbs grow flushed with heat. She felt herself begin to tremble from within. Her heart pounded; every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation. She was so close . . .
Sensing her nearness to climax, Harrison drove deeper, harder. Leah clung to him, murmuring his name.
She rode one last wave of rapture and then she was falling. She heard herself cry out in ecstasy. Every muscle in her body tensed then relaxed as tremor after tremor of ultimate pleasure hit her.
Harrison drove again and again and just when she thought the joy was subsiding, he lifted her again to a place beyond the canvas walls, a place only a man and a woman who truly loved could share.
"Enough, enough," Leah cried. She grabbed him by the shoulders. She was laughing; she was crying.
He held his body still for a moment. She looked up at his flushed face. "Your turn," she whispered as she reached up to caress his cheek. "Let me give you your pleasure."
He threaded his finger through hers and kissed her gently on the lips. "You already have, Leah."
She smiled up at him and then she began to move. She placed her hands on his buttocks and began to lift beneath him ever so slowly. Now she controlled their lovemaking.
Harrison gave into her woman's power, groaning with pleasure. She moved slowly at first, taunting him as he had taunted her. Then she moved faster . . . Then slower . . . Then faster again . . .
Finally, he caught her wrists and pressed them into the canvas again. "You'll kill me here on the beach," he groaned. "I'll not make it to the American camp. I'll die here in your arms."
She laughed as she relaxed beneath him.
He dropped his head to her shoulder and thrust deeply into her, once, twice, a third time. Leah rose to meet him and he cried out in ultimate release.
She sighed, finally content.
He withdrew and fell beside her. She laughed, curling up in his arms. "It's been too long, we're rusty," she whispered.
He brushed his lips against the damp hair that curled at her temple. "Too long, but not rusty, my heart."
After a few moments when both their heart rates had slowed and their breath was coming at a regular pace, he opened his eyes, raising up on one elbow.
"You are incredible, my red bird."
She couldn't resist a smile. She hadn't known if she could still give pleasure to man. It felt good to know she could. She was still a woman.
"This complicates things," she said softly.
He looked past her to the fire. "It does. Now that I've held you in my arms again, I don't know that I can give you back to him when we find him."
She knew who he meant, of course. Edmund. "You have to."
"No." He looked back at her. "There is nothing I must do but meet my maker one day."
"This, what you and I did here tonight, doesn't change anything, Harrison. We've still spent the last nine years apart. I'm still angry at you. You're still angry at me. We've become two people very different from the young man and young woman who fell in love so many years ago."
"You are my wife, Leah."
"I am Edmund's wife."
He sat up, drawing up his legs to rest his chin on his knees. "I could kill him for you," he said, his voice taking on a dark, threatening tone. "I could make you a widow."
She sat up beside him. She stared into the red flames of the campfire. "And then how could we live with ourselves knowing we had murdered an innocent man?"
"I am an innocent man, yet each day for nine years a part of me has died."
Leah reached for her still damp shift, suddenly chilled. "Please don't make me regret what we shared here tonight, Harrison."
He reached out and helped her drape the linen over her shoulders like a shawl. "I'm sorry. You're right, of course. This changes nothing."
She leaned against him, laying her cheek against his bare arm. "That's not really true. It's healed us, Harrison. When we part I'll go back to Tanner's Gift with a part of you. You'll go back to the Shawnee village with a part of me Edmund can never have."
He picked up several pieces of driftwood and tossed them into the fire. "I don't want to talk of this anymore. Let's sleep, Leah. Let's sleep and dream."
He rolled onto his side and reached out for her. She crawled to him. He molded the sand beneath their heads into two pillows. She snuggled against him, her back to him, their bodies molded together. She covered them with her shift.
"Good night," she said sleepily, closing her eyes.
He smoothed her hair. "K'daholel, ki-ti-hi."
She smiled. She didn't need to ask him what he said. It didn't matter. The sound of his voice was enough.
All too soon for Leah, dawn came. A bitter November wind blew through the cracks in the sailcloth wigwam and she trembled with cold. Where was Harrison?
She sat up, drawing her shift around her nakedness. The fire spit and sputtered with fresh driftwood. She knew he couldn't have gone far. She crawled closer to the bright orange flames.
Last night had been glorious and no matter how great a sin, she would treasure the hours she had spent in Harrison's arms forever. Just once, she had told Harrison. just once they would give in to their desires, but now with the coming of the morning light, she wondered if she could hold herself to her promise.
She hated Edmund. She hated him more at this moment than she ever had. He had not married her to save her family from the shame of her affair with Harrison. She had never believed that for a moment. He had married her for Tanner's Gift and for her dowry. Even from the first night there had been no pretending. Edmund had gone into their bedchamber at his father's home for the benefit of the wedding guests, and then left by the back staircase, to lie with his whore. He had declared he would sleep with no redskin-loving bitch, not ever.
So what truth was there in what Harrison said? Whose wife was she? She loved Harrison. She despised Edmund. She handfasted with Harrison. She was forced to marry Edmund afterward. Tears stung her eyes as she stared at the plain gold wedding band she wore on her finger.
She had given birth to Harrison's son . . .
The flap of the wigwam snapped back and Leah dashed at her eyes with the back of her hand. It was her secret, hers and Edmund's. She could share it with no one, not even Harrison.
"Awake?" Harrison asked. He dropped an armful of sandy, damp clothing near the fire and went down on one knee. He touched her cheek with his hand. "Are you all right, my redbird? Are you sick?"
She covered his hand with hers, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm fine. Just happy. Too happy for a woman whose child is missing."
He cupped her chin and lifted it. "He's safe and we will find him, you and I, my redbird."
She smiled. This man she had loved as a young woman had grown to be very complex. Sometimes he sounded like his old self, the Colonial gentleman, but at other times, he was the Shawnee brave she had found in the forest.
"Where have you been?"
she asked. "Where did you find the clothes?"
"On the beach. I was looking for survivors. I buried the sailor's body."
"You didn't find anyone?"
"No." He rose and began to shake out the wet clothes and hang them from the branches that held up their wigwam.
"Let me do that. You can't even stand fully upright in here!"
But before she could rise, he laid his hand on her shoulder. "No. I'll do it. You rest. As soon as we have enough dry things to put on, we've got to walk out of here."
"How far do you think we are from a town?"
"I don't know. We'll walk east through the marsh and hope we hit a farmhouse."
"Most of my money went down with the ship. I've nothing but what's in that bag." She indicated the small leather pouch she wore as a pocket inside her gown. "I'll have to send home for more."
"There's not time, Leah." His task complete, he came and squatted by the fire. "We must hurry. The snow is already falling further north. If it is Iroquois who have taken your son, we will have to go into the great mountains. We wait too long and we will not find him until spring."
"Spring! No!" she shouted. "He can't live that long. He's just a child, Harrison. Edmund doesn't know how to care for him! He—"
Their gazes met. "I understand and that's why we must hurry."
She gazed back into the flames of the campfire. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you. I'm just afraid for him."
He squeezed her hand. "Hungry?"
She nodded, still looking into the fire.
"Good." Harrison ducked out of the wigwam and came back in a gust of wind, a moment later. He held up a good sized trout, already scaled and cleaned.
She clapped her hands in delight. "How did you catch it without a hook and line?"
He skewered it on a stick and propped it close enough to the fire to make it sizzle. "An Indian thing, you wouldn't understand."
She rose up on her knees, all their troubles forgotten for the moment. Right now she was just glad to be with him. "An Indian thing? What? You waded it into the bay and called upon the great Shawnee goddess of the water for fish to rise to the surface?"
Whispered Promise Page 12
