Into the Wilderness (40 page)

She
said, "I've just spent eight weeks being pleasant to Richard Todd. Which I
didn't enjoy, though you seem to think I did. I thought you and I would have ..
. a little time together."

There
, she thought,
blushing and cursing herself for it.
I've
as much as dared him to kiss me, and what if he won't? What if he doesn't?
There was a need in her that she couldn't name and didn't know how to tell him
about, but she knew she must touch him, must have him touch her, or simply die.

He
saw all this, and it made him glad and it frightened him, too.
"Elizabeth," he whispered, catching her up tight against him.
"By Christ, don't you think I know how long it's been? But if I start, if
we start—" And then he paused to kiss her, anyway, because she was so
close and there was her smell that undid him, dried flowers and ink and her
woman smell, and there was nothing more in the world he could think of doing. A
rough kiss that drew from Elizabeth a sigh like the wind in the trees.
Nathaniel pulled her up tighter against him and went on kissing her for a long
time, until he could force himself to stop

He
buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. "If we start this
now—"

She
said, "It's already started." And she was right, he knew it; it was
started and it couldn't be stopped. There was nothing to do but to draw her
down into the pelts, reaching behind her to snap a cord with a jerk of his
wrist so that she could lie there in a jumble of fisher fur as dark and rich as
her hair while he kissed her mouth, and kissed it again, and touched her, her
face, her throat, letting his mouth follow, his body tense with purpose even
while hers softened, drawing him in.

Her
eyes glowed in the half light as he untied her cloak and tugged it out from
under her. Concentrating on her face, Nathaniel pulled free the lace kerchief
tucked into her bodice, drawing it over her skin. He dropped it behind himself
and then, slowly, ran his knuckles over the swell of her breasts and down her
body, half fearing that she would protest. But instead there was only the way
her flesh rose to him, and the sound of her indrawn breath. She touched him
then. Slid her hand into the open throat of his shirt to draw him down into a
kiss deep enough to put an end to his indecision.

There
were buttons and ties and hooks to be dealt with between long kisses. She
helped him with her own clothes until only her shift remained, and then watched
with a little frown of concentration as he sat back on his heels to pull his
shirt over his head. He felt her hands on him while his face was still caught
inside, her tentative fingers touching the Kahnyen'keháka tattoo that circled
his chest, tracing faded scars. When he had stretched out next to her again she
found the one she wanted, a puckered bullet wound on his shoulder. She lifted
her head to press her lips to it, the shy touch of her tongue moving him to
hastiness. He drew her close.

"Is
this what you want?" he asked, his cupped hands pressing her buttocks
through thin muslin, seeing that she did want it in her face and the way she
moved into his hands. But he needed to hear her say so.

She
surprised him. "It's you I want," she said clearly. "Not Richard
Todd. You." And he understood that he had underestimated her frustration
and anger and pure iron will.

He
pushed the shift off her shoulders, helped her turn this way and that until she
was free of it, her body white against the dark fur. The luxury of her breasts,
firm and round and full, struck at him like a fist.

"Holy
God," he muttered, burying his face in the curve of her throat, his hands
clenching on her back. He could feel all her furious determination draining
away to sudden uncertainty.

"Are
you—is everything—all right?" she asked hoarsely.

Nathaniel
captured her bare shoulders and leaned over her, his blood leaping at the feel
of her softness against his chest. That she would need to ask such a question,
that she would have no idea of her own beauty or of the value of what she
offered him.

"Elizabeth,"
he said, resting his forehead on hers. "You are the finest thing I've ever
seen. But it's been a good long while, and I'm having a hard time minding my
self—control."

She
smiled then. "Nobody has asked you to," she whispered, and she
blushed, the color seeping down her neck and over her chest.

He
followed her blush, forcing himself to slow down and start the whole game anew,
light kisses and then more demanding ones while he explored her. With an open
palm he drew circles over her nipple until she gasped, her fingers curling hard
around his arms. When he found her breast with his mouth she cried out for the
first time, arching up to him while he suckled. Her flesh swelling against his
tongue, Nathaniel felt his whole body shudder with the pleasure of it.

She
had broken out in a fine sweat; he licked it from between her breasts and her
throat, working his way up to claim her mouth in a kiss as heavy and demanding
as the ridge of flesh he pressed against her hip. As he rocked against her, hip
to hip and tongue to tongue, he ran a finger up her thigh to touch her heat for
the first time.

He
realized that she was trying to talk to him, and he came back to himself a
little. His name. She was summoning him to her. He drew it from her mouth,
swallowed it whole. gave her back her own name, fed it to her with his tongue.
Between kisses he untied the thong that held his breech clout and leggings, and
then he gathered her up against himself, wanting to feel her, all of her skin
against his.

"Elizabeth,"
he whispered.

She
focused on him finally, her eyes cloudy with wanting.

"Richard
Todd can't have you, not ever. You have to leave your father's home and come to
me. Because once this is done, you are mine to keep and protect, and I am
yours. Do you understand?"

"Oh,
yes," she whispered, her hands flitting over his shoulders.

"When
I'm dying," he said. "When I close my eyes at the last, it'll be your
face I see, right at this moment."

* * *

When
she could think again, the first coherent thought that came to Elizabeth was
that she had lied. To Nathaniel, and to herself.
I'm not an idiot
, she had told him back in the snowy strawberry
field.
I know what it is to mate.

But
she had been an idiot, to have thought it would be a simple, mechanical act of
commitment. It had seemed the logical and the right thing to do there was no
clearer pledge she could make, no better way to make him understand that his
jealousy of Richard Todd was unfounded.

And,
she admitted to herself, she had suspected that she would enjoy it. His kisses
had made her curious. But she had underestimated herself, her wanting and its
own strength. The depth of her own response was as compelling and surprising as
the burning mix of pain and pleasure he had brought to her.

He
had pulled pelts over them, and Elizabeth moved tentatively underneath,
appreciating the strange indulgence of fur against her bare skin, and the warm,
damp trace of him on her thighs. Nathaniel was lying on his side behind her in
the same curve, the hard length of his leg following the line of her own in a
casual embrace which seemed to Elizabeth almost more intimate than the act that
went before it. His breath on her shoulder, he stroked her arm from wrist to
elbow and back again.

"What
are you thinking?"

She
turned to him then, determined not to be timid. "I was thinking that some
things don't lend themselves to rational analysis."

He
grinned, his teeth flashing white. "Is that good or bad?"

"Good,"
she said simply, and then dropped her gaze, in spite of all her intentions. She
studied the dark blue jagged line which crossed his chest and continued in a
loop around his torso, to a destination somewhere on his back. She wondered
where exactly it went, but she was too comfortable and too shy to follow it
right now.

He
raised her chin with his finger. "You're not asking, but I'll tell you
anyway what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about how fine it is to have you here
like this, next to me." His gaze held her steady, as if daring her to
doubt him.

"Oh."
Elizabeth could feel a slow warmth seeping through her bones, pooling in her
breasts and lower, lower.
This is how it
starts
, she thought.
With words. With
his voice, so deep that it echoes down inside.

"And
I'm wondering if you're regretting this, already."

She
watched him swallow, the column of muscles in his throat moving.

"Oh,
no," she murmured, pushing her face into the curve of his shoulder.
"Quite to the contrary."

He
smoothed her hair. "Is that so?"

With
a little jolt of satisfaction, Elizabeth realized that Nathaniel was asking her
for reassurance. This made her flush with pleasure, and it gave her the courage
to say something she might not otherwise have said.

"I
wasn't sure that I would, but after a bit, I did like it. This. Being with
you."

"So
did I," he said solemnly, but Elizabeth could feel him smiling.

She
moved closer to him, the feel of his chest against her cheek and the weight of
his arm around her shoulders already familiar. The beat of his heart and the
rush of the waterfall were hypnotic.

"It's
nice here," she said groggily.

He
took her head between his hands, forced her to meet his eye. "Elizabeth,
we have to talk."

"Of
course," she said. "But the questions that come to mind right now
aren't .. . seemly."

He
laughed then, a comfortable sound. "For instance?"

Elizabeth
closed her eyes to gather her thoughts.
Did
I please you?
she wanted to ask, and
May
I look at you, at all of you?
and
what
is it that you think of while you're holding me? Did you cry out at the end in
pain, or pleasure?
And
Is your child
started inside me now?
But this last thought was too much; it filled her
with anticipation and joy and a bottomless terror. She pushed it away.

He
was watching her closely. Elizabeth thought that perhaps he knew all these
things that were in her mind, and others that she could not yet put words to.
She knew too that there wasn't time for this now.

"Boots?"

"All
right, if you must know." She opened her palms on his chest, ran them over
his shoulders, thick with muscle. "I was just wondering how often we would
do—this."

He
laughed again, and cupped her face in his hand, rubbing a thumb across her
lower lip before he kissed her. "I would say that we should get married
first before we start negotiating that point." There was a scuffle under
the pelts as he held off the hand she raised to cuff his ear. "But out of
curiosity, Boots, how often would suit you?"

Very
much awake now, she beat on his shoulders until he captured both wrists and
flipped her to her back, leaning over to pin her arms up and away. His hair
fell forward to brush her breasts, his earring glimmering bright silver against
his skin.
Look, oh, look at you,
she
thought, struck by the wondrous beauty of him, the long, elegant body arched
over her with muscles tensed. She closed her eyes because the sight of him
blinded her.

"Constantly,"
he whispered against her mouth. "We will do this at every opportunity."

* * *

Nathaniel
brought her a bowl of water from the falls and tore strips from an old homespun
hunting shirt so that Elizabeth could wash, but there was not enough time in
the world to put herself in order. She brushed with increasing dismay at her
wrinkled skirts and then, in near panic, she presented herself to Nathaniel.

"You
look like you've been up to mischief," he said finally. He himself looked
as he always did; buckskin did not wrinkle, it seemed.

"Mischief,
is it?" she muttered. "It's not amusing, Nathaniel. I can't go back
home like this. You know I cannot." In a fit of irritation, she turned her
back on him while she tried to tuck her lace more neatly into the line of her
bodice so that it covered the red flush that still mottled her chest.

"Do
you take a chill easy?" Nathaniel asked.

She
pulled up, surprised. "What?"

"Are
you one of those women who take a chill easy in the cold? Get sick and take to
bed?" Elizabeth raised her chin. "I haven't been ill enough to stay
in bed since I was twelve and I knocked my head climbing a tree. I can't even
remember the last time I had a fever." She said this with some pride, and
was surprised by Nathaniel's grin in reply.

"Come."
He took her by the wrist to pull her to the next cave over her protests.

"Please,
Nathaniel, think a minute. What am I to do? We can't afford to have any
suspicions raised—"

Just
before the waterfall he stopped. "Has anyone taught you yet how to drink
out of a stream?" He shouted, to be heard above the rushing water.

Mystified,
Elizabeth shook her head. "Why?"