Dorothy Garlock (22 page)

But he didn’t. He held out the soap and she took it from his hand. He dived beneath the water and she hurried out of the pool and into the shadows where the cool air washed over her damp, warm body. After she dressed, she moved away from the place where his clothes lay, and knelt down to wash her dress and his shirt. She kept her face averted when he came out of the pool and didn’t turn until she was sure he had dressed.

They walked back down the path, he carrying the rifle and she their wet clothes. Unspoken in both their minds was the thought that this was likely to be the last peaceful night they would spend together. It was only a matter of time until Adam Clayhill and his raiders found them, and Case was sure to come tomorrow or the next day.

Rosalee felt a frantic need to lighten the mood, but nothing lighthearted occurred to her, and in the end she said, “Did the warm water help your back?”

“I’m sure it did. It took the stiffness out of my muscles, too.” The very quietness of his voice told her his thoughts were elsewhere and she made no further attempt at conversation.

A deep silence settled over the night, isolating the calls of the night birds, the crickets, and the faint rustling sound of a packrat scurrying through the dried leaves on his nocturnal wanderings.

Brutus was waiting for them when they rounded the boulder below the cliff house. Logan spoke to him in a low tone and Rosalee went past them up the ramp. Her heart was as heavy as lead in her chest. She added a few twigs to the coals of the cookfire, and in the faint light of the blaze she laid out the cornhusk mattress and a blanket for Logan. She made a pallet for herself on the other side of the room, completing it as the fire died, leaving the room in darkness. After she removed her dress, shoes and stockings, she crawled under the blanket wearing only her shift and let the tears roll from her eyes.

Logan stood outside the room, fighting a silent battle with his own thoughts. It seemed to him he had searched through a lifetime of emptiness, reaching for something to hold onto, only to have it crumble to nothing in his hands. Up until now he had faced the discouraging fact it would always be this way. The Indians accepted him; the whites did not. Had he not been schooled and reared among the whites, his life would have been less complicated. The irony of it was, he felt more white than Indian, and he now couldn’t accept the Indian way of life.

Inside the cliff house was all he’d ever dreamed of having—a sweet, soft woman to love and take care of, one who would love him in return. Forces beyond his control were closing in on him. He felt it like the chill of winter. Would their coming find him competent to stand against them? He sighed deeply. He did not know.

Rosalee knew when Logan came through the doorway. “Your bed is over by your tack,” she said softly. He didn’t answer, but soon she heard the scraping of the rifle barrel as he stood it against the wall.

“Go to sleep. Brutus will let us know if anyone comes.” He spoke slowly, tiredly. The dry cornhusks made a rustling sound when he lay down.

She lay on her back, staring up into the darkness, seeing how he looked, his great strong body, dark eyes, copper-colored skin, and his one concession to vanity, the full mustache, shaped in a wide downward curve around his firm mouth. She wondered how the mustache would feel against her face. Her breath became heavier, and a hunger for him that was like a pain went from her lips down into her loins, centered there and pulsed. She had wooed him by doing for him; she had loved him in secret, yearning for him to turn to her. He was companionable, his great, dark eyes eternally watching her, but beyond this he would not go. She wanted to submit to him and comfort him with her woman’s sweetness. It would never happen, she thought desperately, unless she made it happen.

She came to a sudden decision, threw back the blanket, and slipped from her bed before she had time to reconsider her action. Her shift fell to her knees when she stood in the cool darkness, consumed by shame for what she was about to do, her body flaming, her damp braid hanging down her back. She knew exactly where he was, and she sensed his dark eyes on the whiteness of her body. She walked barefoot across the hard-packed floor and knelt down on the mattress. A sense of helplessness threatened to send her scurrying back to her pallet, and she said the only thing that had any meaning for her in this endless moment.

“Logan . . . I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

He let his hard-held breath escape. “Yes,” he whispered.

“I know you’re afraid to love me. But I’m not afraid.”

“Oh, God, Rosalee! I’m not afraid for myself, but for you!”

“Don’t be afraid for me. I’m a woman grown. I know what I want. I want you, Logan. I’m shameless for saying so, but I want to be with you, stay with you.”

“I’d marry you in a minute if I thought there was any chance it might not ruin you . . . any thread of hope we’d be able to live in peace. In the end it would destroy you!” His voice shook as a flood of despair knocked at his heart.

“I’m not convinced of that. I’ve waited for you all my life. If you love me, even half as much as I love you, you’ll not turn me away. I’m asking you to take me in all the ways a man takes the woman he loves,” she whispered shamelessly.

“
I can’t,
Rosalee! I’ve thought about it until I’m half out of my mind . . . trying to convince myself that after awhile you wouldn’t come to resent being married to a breed.” His voice was hoarse with pleading. “I can’t ask you to endure the snubs of your neighbors and friends. You’ll not be accepted anywhere, Rosalee. I know, I’ve lived with that reality all my life.”

“I want to be with you, live with you. Be your mate in all things. You’re what matters to me.” She waited in an agony of suspense. “Do you love me? I’ve got to know!”

“God, yes! I love you with every drop of blood in my body, I love you with all my heart and soul, whatever that may be. There’s no question in my mind about loving you, my sweet and beautiful girl! The problem is—”

“Hush! Hush!” she said joyously, and lifted the blanket and launched herself into his arms.

A moan slid out of him and his arms closed around her and pulled all her whiteness into the curve of his great, hard body. She lifted her arms, encircled his neck, and wound her fingers in his damp, dark hair. For an endless time he held her clamped to him, hurting her with his desperate hunger to feel every inch of her, breathing hard into her hair. Then his mouth covered hers, ground and bruised and lifted.

“My darling girl! I love you so much!” he whispered, between frantic kisses. “I love you, love you . . .” The words trailed off as his mouth traced the pattern of love on hers.

She gloried in the closeness of their bodies. It was as if she had been on a long journey and, at last, she was home.

Their lips caught and clung, released and smiled against each other, caught again. They were kisses of newly discovered love. They laughed lowly, intimately, joyously, and their fingers moved over each other’s faces; hers lingering on the stubble on his cheeks.

“Logan.” His name came sweet and shivering from her throat.

“I wish I’d shaved. I’ll scratch your sweet face.”

“I don’t care. Just keep kissing me. Your lips are soft, not at all what I expected.”

The laugh bubbled up out of his throat and he rolled so she was on her back and he was hovering over her. “You’re more than I ever dreamed of.” His lips covered her face, moved down her smooth cheeks to her lips that waited, warm and eager.

“Your mustache is soft,” she whispered after a long deep kiss.

“I’ll get rid of it if you want me to.”

“No. I want you to stay as you are.”

“I’m not sure how to love you,” he groaned, breathing hard. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

“You’ll not hurt me.” She squirmed against him and he hugged her tighter. “Do people love each other with their clothes on?” she whispered. The warm safety of his arms was heaven! She felt as if she could ask him anything.

“Some do.”

“Are we going to?” Her hands slid carefully down his back to the waist of his pants.

“No, by God!” He held her face in his hands, kissing her eyelids, the curve of her cheek, her mouth. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, slipped in between and stroked the edge of her teeth. He felt her tremble beneath him and raised his head. He knew he had to be gentle, but it took all his self-control to keep his passion in check. The thought that this sweet woman had never known another man filled him with a strange emotion. He had never been with a woman this innocent. He prayed he could make it beautiful for her.

“You’re trembling,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid. This kind of love is for giving and sharing. I’ll try to be gentle . . . but I’m so full of love for you.”

“I could never be afraid of you. I’m just . . . excited.” Her mind whirled giddily.

He moved away from her for a moment and she brazenly slipped out of her shift. He was back, leaning over her, drawing her, naked and beautiful, against him. She was shattered by the sheer pleasure of lying naked beneath him, but the pleasure had just begun, as she discovered under the roaming caresses of his lips. In a frenzy to caress him, her hand found a ridge on his back.

“Your poor back! Your ribs!” she cried in an agonized whisper.

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” His answering whisper breathed past her ear. “It’s nothing compared to the pain of wanting you.” His hand moved over her body from shoulder to thigh, caressing the flat plain of her belly, and then moved to her breast. He cupped it in his hand, squeezed it gently. “Ah . . . how I’ve wanted to feel this softness.” He lowered his head and buried his face between the soft mounds. His hair, soft and clean, lay caressingly on her bare flesh. “Rosalee . . . to be with you like this is . . . heaven.”

She felt a sharp thrill as his lips tugged at her breast and hugged his shaggy head to her. Her fingertips roamed over his smooth shoulders and neck, lightly fingered his ear, and plunged into his thick, dark hair.

“Your skin is so smooth.”

“So is yours,” he whispered against her flesh. “You smell good, feel good.”

“So do you.”

“I like the way you taste, the way you look, the way you are with me—soft and sweet.” His lips moved up and tingled across her mouth with feathery kisses. Her breast filled his palm. His strong fingers stroked and fondled as carefully as if he was holding a precious life in his hand. His lips left hers and he gulped for air.

She couldn’t speak. Her palms slid over muscle and tight flesh as if she had to know every inch of him. He advanced his pelvis against her thigh, deliberately letting her feel his elongated hardness. It was firm and throbbing against the thigh pinned between his, his need a tumulting pressure in his groin that verged on actual pain. She wasn’t frightened of it, despite the things her cousins back in Missouri said about the dreadful, hurtful thing a man put inside a woman. She wanted it, welcomed it, and was awed by this giant of a man who trembled beneath her touch and yet demanded nothing she was not willing to give.

“Darling . . .” The word came from her like a sigh. His masculine scent filled her nostrils. She felt the wetness of his tongue on her breast.

“I’ll hurt you when I come inside you. You know that?”

“I know it and want it—”

His hand moved down her belly and into the soft hair between her thighs, his fingers felt the wetness and moved into her mysterious moistness. Rosalee gave a small strangled cry. Tremors shot through her in rocketing waves. She grabbed the thick wrist of his hand resting on her belly and pulled the exploring fingers from her body.

“Oh . . . Logan! Darling . . .” It was a quivering whisper.

“Did you like that, sweetheart?”

“Yes, yes! Oh, yes!”

“That’s only part of it, my love.” A low groan came from him and he gently spread her thighs. He supported himself on his forearms and moved between them. He lay still for a moment and rained tender, soft kisses on her face. “I like the feel of your breasts against my chest, your heart beating against mine.” He whispered words of love against her lips.

He took her mouth in a hard, deep kiss, but the kiss wasn’t enough. Only by blending together could they even begin to appease the hunger they had for each other. He lifted his hips. Her hand burrowed between his belly and hers to guide him into her.

“Oh . . . my love!” She arched against him in sensual pleasure.

“I’m so big! I know I’ll hurt you! Oh, God! I don’t know if I can stop!” His cheek was pressed to hers, his words came in an agonized whisper.

“Don’t stop, love! Don’t stop—” His concern brought tears that rolled down her temple to his. He felt them, turned his head and caught them with the tip of his tongue, then found her lips and kissed her with lips wet with her tears.

He made a sudden move with his hips and Rosalee felt a small, sharp pain which was nothing compared to the intense pleasure of being filled by him. He stopped when he felt the proof of her virginity give way beneath his battering. His kisses became even more tender.

“Oh, Logan! You’re completely inside me! How wonderful!”

He raised his head and rested his forehead against hers. She was a constant surprise, a constant joy. “You were made to be loved . . . and cherished!” he whispered. “I pledge my love and my life to you, sweet Rosalee.”

“And I to you, my wonderful man.”

“I wanted to do this the night we sat by the woodpile. I’d feel myself begin to swell and I’d breathe deeply and say, Oh, God, don’t let me scare the hell out of this sweet woman. I ached for you tonight in the pool—all of your sweetness just a foot away and I didn’t dare reach for it.” He murmured love talk in her ear and moved gently in her body, trying desperately to hold back his own release until he’d made sure she’d experienced the supreme pleasure.

The spasms of exquisite feeling that followed were like a gorgeous dance throughout her body. At times it was like a gentle wind caressing her wet, nude body. At other times it was like an enormous wave crashing over her. The whole world was this man joined to her, his sex at home in the cavern of her body, deeply implanted, moving gently, throbbing, caressing, loving. She arched her hips hungrily and he wildly took what she offered. It was an ecstasy too beautiful for mere words. It was a joyous eclipse into time.