Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (10 page)

      
Cain held back the furious rush of lust that made him long to crush her mouth to his and plunder it. Instead he tasted the firm tenderness of pale pink, exalted at the slight quiver in her lower lip as he brushed it, then nipped it softly, tugging it between his teeth until she gasped and dug her nails into the bunched muscles of his shoulders. When her lips parted he rimmed the small round O of her mouth with his tongue and quickly dipped it inside, touching hers, then retreating. She responded tentatively, flicking the rosy tip of her tongue to his lips. Losing control, he covered her mouth with a groan of animal pleasure.

      
His lips molded to hers, enticing her to open her mouth fully. This time his tongue did not taste and dart. Rather, it swept against her teeth, twined with her tongue, dancing along the sensitive sides, plunging in and out. She clung to him with a whimper that was not quite fear, not quite pleasure, yet something that she could not deny.

      
Roxanna felt his hand cradle her head and his fingers weave their way into her hair, pulling it loose from its plait even as he tugged on it, bending her body backward for better access to her mouth. His free arm pressed her tightly against his chest. She could feel his heat, so unlike the feverish weakness of that night when he lay unconscious. Now it was potent, male, hungry. She should have been frightened, shocked, repelled. Instead the answering heat spreading through her burned away everything but the consuming need to feel his body, his mouth, his hands on her.

      
Cain grazed the lush softness of her breast with his fingertips, feeling her flesh tighten, the nipple hardening to a pebbly point. She was a vision of pink and silver and white. The image of her standing naked in the stream would be engraved on his mind's eye for the rest of his life. But she was as unattainable for him as snow in the Sahara—except for right now.
Now I could have her

      
And he would. Her hands slid up around his neck, pulling him down as he lowered her onto the soft furs of his pallet. She whimpered when his mouth left hers, but arched up when its heat trailed soft wet kisses down her throat and across her collarbone, nuzzling the edge of her tunic where her breasts swelled.

      
Roxanna felt his hands unfastening the ties of her tunic, felt the tautening of her nipples as her breasts ached, resonating with the throbbing low inside her belly. She must stop this! It was wicked, utterly insane! Would she throw away her whole future for a stranger, a half-breed gunman who was probably an outlaw? Then the scalding heat of his lips suckled her breast and the world spun away from her. She dug her fingers into his night-black hair, urging him on as he moved to the other breast, murmuring indistinct love words in that soft gravelly voice.

      
Cain ignored the throbbing of his wounded side and bruised back for the more urgent ache of his groin as he lay her back and covered her. He could feel her long slender legs part, ready to receive him when he plunged deep inside her. Just as he began to unfasten the fly imprisoning his swollen sex, a low sharp cough broke through their blended pants and moans. The traditional Cheyenne greeting outside the lodge was like a dousing of ice-cold river water. Cain recognized Leather Shirt's voice as the old chief cleared his throat and coughed impatiently a second time.

      
One instant Roxanna was buried beneath his hard hungry body, desperate to have him take her to a place she had never been before. The next, she was alone, shivering in shock as he rolled away from her with a guttural oath and began refastening his breeches. She lay sprawled like the whore she now felt herself to be, legs spread, tunic rucked up, breasts bared in the cool evening air. The smell of greasy cold meat and sweet fruit blended with wood smoke and the unmistakable musk of sex. Her stomach churned sourly as she sat up and refastened the shoulder ties of her tunic with trembling fingers. Cain watched her with hooded eyes, further adding to her mortification.

      
Then he called out something in Cheyenne. When she had finished repairing herself, he spoke again. Leather Shirt opened the door flap and stepped inside. He did not deign to look at her but exchanged several harsh sentences with Cain, then turned and departed as abruptly as he had arrived. Humiliated as she was in front of the chief, Roxanna was grateful for his interruption.
What would I have done if he hadn't come?

      
“Regrets, Silver Hair?” Cain taunted, hiding his anger for the loss of something that had stretched between them far transcending momentary lust. No. It was only lust, nothing more.
Better that I didn’t take her
, he thought savagely. He knew he lied, but he refused to examine why.

      
“What did Leather Shirt want?” she finally asked, no longer able to bear the uncomfortable silence.

      
“You mean besides breaking up our little—”

      
The ring of her palm connecting with his cheek wiped the smirking look from his face. Shame churned deep in her gut. She was merely a plaything to him, just as she had been to Captain Nathaniel Darby that ugly night in Vicksburg when the Confederate officer had offered a Federal spy her freedom in exchange for her honor. She expected a blaze of anger from Cain and was surprised when he merely sat back, his face expressionless.

      
“I suppose I deserved that.” At her suddenly wary startled look, he tried to explain the unexplainable. They had to reach some understanding if they were going to travel together all the way to MacKenzie's rail camp. “Look, neither of us set out to make this happen, Alexa...it just did. Hell…” He combed his fingers through his hair. “You helped Sees Much save my life. I owe you better than...damn.”

      
She stared down at her tightly clasped hands. “And I owe you for finding me and bargaining for my freedom. So I guess we're even, Cain.” She stood up quickly, wanting desperately to get away from him, to bring her tumbling emotions under control and sort everything out calmly, the way she normally did.

      
Before she could flee out the door, he said, “Leather Shirt told me the Pawnee have ridden south. It's safe for us to leave in the morning.”

      
She did not turn around, only looked back over her shoulder to ask, “Are you well enough to travel?”

      
He rubbed his side gingerly. “It's sore, but I've had worse. Yeah, I can ride.”

      
“Then I'll be ready.” With that she vanished through the lodge door.

* * * *

      
“How strange that I could think of nothing but escaping when I first was brought here. Now I'm sorry to leave your people. You have been kind,” Roxanna said to Sees Much.

      
The old man took a puff from his pipe and set it aside. They were alone in the lodge, as both his granddaughters were at the dance being held to celebrate the departure of the Pawnee enemy from Cheyenne hunting grounds. He looked at the lovely young woman whose courage and goodness had touched him. “My heart is glad to hear these words. You were brought here for a purpose. I was merely an instrument.”

      
She smiled. “To bring fine rifles so the People could hunt?”

      
“No, that was only a small blessing for us. There are greater things than these which will unfold in your world and ours before we meet again

      
She looked at him curiously. “You've mentioned before this dream you had about capturing me—and the Lone Bull... Where does he fit into it? You never did explain my dream about the buffalo with the bloody horns.”

      
“He has told you the reason for his banishment.” It was not a question.

      
She nodded. “That explains why the Lone Bull had blood on his horns, I suppose, but what about me?”

      
“The death of High-Backed Wolf was long ago. That cycle comes to a close now, I think. Perhaps you are his healing, for he has great need of healing, do you not agree?”

      
“Yes. I've never met a man so...alone.” She groped for a better way to explain her feelings about Cain but found none. “But I cannot absolve him for the death of his brother.”

      
“You can love him. That will be enough.”

      
Her head raised abruptly and she felt her cheeks flush in the firelight as her eyes met his. “Love him?” she echoed, her voice scratchy, startled. Had he learned from Leather Shirt about what transpired earlier in Cain's lodge? This old shaman's good opinion of her mattered as much as her own father's had when he was alive.

      
“Love him. The rest will be revealed to us all in time.”

* * * *

      
You can love him
. Sees Much's words echoed in her mind as she bade farewell to the friends she had made during her sojourn with the Cheyenne. Old Leather Shirt stood sternly apart, an unreadable look on his face. Did he condemn her as a loose-moraled white woman after hearing her and Cain last night? She had learned, contrary to what whites believed, that the Cheyenne had exceedingly strict rules regarding chastity. Then he nodded to her in his cool measuring way, as if saying, Go in peace, Her Back Is Straight. She did not smile but gravely returned his gesture.

      
“We miss you,” Willow Tree said, pounding her heart with one strong brown fist. Lark Song echoed the sentiment as they embraced her while Sees Much stood by.

      
Cain watched their leave-taking, amazed at the affection Alexa Hunt had for these people. Any other white woman in her position would have shucked the dust from her boots as swiftly as she could and ridden away. Leather Shirt remained impassive as he stared at Not Cheyenne.
That's all I'll ever be to him, Not Cheyenne
, he thought bitterly as a long-ago scene replayed itself in his mind.

      
He had come to the chief when he returned from Enoch's destroyed mission, asking for justice and finding none.

      
“What if it had been Sees Much who High-Backed Wolf had killed? Would you think it wrong that he die for his crime then?” he had cried.

      
“Only your white blood would allow you to kill one of the People. High-Backed Wolf would never do such a thing. His heart was bad to kill the white medicine man, but he will not die for it, nor suffer banishment, for he has not killed one of us. That is our law. I have said.”

      
“Then I want no part of your law, for it has never applied to me or my kind! You make it clear that I never belonged.”

      
“You chose in your own heart long ago. You want only to belong to your father's people.”

      
“Then no one will mourn me when I am banished. They can mourn High-Backed Wolf, who will pay for his sins. I have said!”

      
Sees Much watched the faraway bitter cast of Lone Bull’s face and knew he was reliving the hurt and anger of his last parting from the People. Would there be a time when he could come among them with joy? If only the Everywhere Spirit would grant an old man this prayer. The arrival of Her Back Is Straight was a good sign. Perhaps it would be so. The shaman was certain she could help the Lone Bull...if only the proud outsider would let her.

* * * *

      
As they rode away from the Cheyenne encampment, Roxanna observed that Cain never once waved or looked back. “Banishment must have been painful for you. Don't you have any relatives left alive in the band?” she asked.

      
‘‘Sees Much is my great-uncle. Leather Shirt is my grandfather,” he said bleakly, then lapsed into silence, not inviting any further comment or questions.

      
She digested his statement, not really surprised by it after she thought it over. There was a certain physical resemblance between the two tall lean men. What Indian features Cain possessed he had inherited from his grandfather. She was equally curious about his white ancestry but knew better than to broach the painful subject. The father who had spurned Cain's love was an even more jealously guarded secret than his Cheyenne family.

      
Roxanna mulled over the reckless passion that had almost overwhelmed them last night. He was right in saying neither of them intended for it to happen. Lord knew he had tried to hold her at arm's length with cool taunts, even insults. But something kept drawing her to him. The dream? Or his loneliness and vulnerability? Those were certainly traits they had in common, that and a surfeit of pride worn like armor to protect them from any more of life's cruelties.

      
Fate in the guise of his grandfather had intervened to save them from hopelessly compromising themselves. Cain was an employee of Jubal MacKenzie. What would have happened if they had slept together and then she had to face him once she was married to Lawrence Powell? In conscience could she even have gone through with the marriage?

      
Somehow the arrangement had never seemed real to her. She had tried to convince herself that this marriage to a stranger was better than the awful fate to which Isobel Darby would consign her. Back in St. Louis the scheme had seemed workable, but with every mile she rode closer to it, her confidence waned.

      
All because of Cain.

      
No, that was not true, she assured herself. It was the idea of binding herself for life to any man. During the war she had discovered men were lying, deceitful and brutal. The idea of letting another one touch her made her skin crawl.
But you were desperate for more when he touched you.
Roxanna stared at Cain's dark forbidding profile. He had not shaved for the past two days and the beard stubble made his face even more piratical. All he needed was a big gold ear loop to complete the picture.