Native Gold (39 page)

She entwined her hands through his hair—his glorious, long hair—wishing she could keep him there forever. But he quenched his thirst and kissed his way up to her face, holding her head in his two hands to plunder her mouth deeply with his ravenous tongue.

Breathless, she clung to him as the world spun around her. She ached for him now, low in her belly, ached for the relief she knew he could bring.

He ended the kiss, and then nuzzled her cheek until he found the lobe of her ear. His hot breath sent a shiver along her neck.

"I want to taste you," he murmured. She gasped as his hand slid gently between her legs. "Here."

"Oh," she cried, unable to speak. Such a thing was indecent, unthinkable, impossible, and yet...her body arched against the pad of his palm with a hunger so sharp it frightened her.

He took her silence to mean assent, lowering himself toward the center of her lust, and she bit her lip in a torment of anticipation.

The chemise slid with maddening sloth over her skin as he drew it back from her. For a long moment, all she could feel was the moist heat of his taunting breath along her thighs. Then he kissed her...there...and she gasped with a spasm of excruciating pleasure. A hot river of desire burst from the spot and rushed through her veins, leaving her skin tingling with fire. She flung the back of her hand across her mouth, afraid her cries of sweet agony might pierce the night as he bathed her most secret places.

She should make him stop. What he did was primitive and wicked and sinful. And yet she found no words to belay his heathen assault, no strength to fight his thrilling seduction. She knew the cliff he led her toward, and all the dragging of her heels made no difference. Once there, she knew she’d leap willingly from that precipice.

Her body belonged to Sakote. Every inch of her skin prickled with desire for him, as if she were somehow attuned to him—could respond only to his touch and could only be slaked at his bidding. It panicked her, this sensation of entrapment, and yet she trusted him completely. He knew what he was doing. He would be gentle with her. After all, he was experienced in the ways of love.

Sakote prayed for Wonomi’s guidance, for he’d never taken a woman before in this way. Mati’s feminine scent made him feel as if he were drunk on the white man’s whiskey. But the blood surged in his loins now. He must join with Mati soon, before his man’s-knife wearied of the hunt and grew reckless.

Leaving one hand to comfort her, Sakote moved up her body, kissing her belly, where one day their child would grow, and the place between her breasts, where her precious heart beat. Beneath the deerskin, his man’s-knife dragged across her thigh as he crept higher, at last capturing her gasping mouth in his own.

When he turned aside, it was only to quickly unfasten the rawhide lace of his breechcloth. Finally free, his man’s-knife fell heavily upon her hip, and he groaned at the warmth of her flesh on his. He panted against her cheek, unable to think of the English words to speak to her. He knew he should turn her on her belly. It was the way of mating, the way of Coyote and Lizard and Mountain Lion. But he wanted her like this. He wanted to press his heart to hers, to feel her breath, to swallow her cries in his mouth.

In ragged gasps, he began to say the words of love that would bless their joining.

Mattie couldn’t understand a word Sakote said. She could scarcely hear anything over the mad rushing in her ears and the moans coming from some primal place deep inside her. But she could feel him, hard and warm and wet, between her thighs. And the ache within her womb became a hollow yearning.

He nudged at her tentatively, cautiously, but her body would have none of his timid advances. With a wild gasp, she arched up carelessly, enveloping him all at once. His fierce groan drowned out her sharp cry of pain, but did nothing to ease the horrifying burn that suffused her woman’s parts, and she stiffened in fear.

For a long while, he only held her, his breath labored and shuddery against her neck, and as if by magic, the pain inside her dwindled to a dull throb. Then he began to move, languidly drawing out of her, then returning, until she became aware of every magnificent inch of him. A haze of sensual wonder made her forget the pain and beckoned her to greater delights. Her body danced on its own, answering a rhythm it seemed to know, withdrawing, and then thrusting up to meet him again and again. She thrashed across the rushes, wanting, needing...something.

She drew her legs up around him, clasping him in a closer embrace, digging her heels into the sleek, flexing muscle of his buttocks. He shivered, growling deep in his throat. She burrowed her head against his chest, bathing her face in his sweat, smothering herself in his essence.

His growls became more and more urgent, his movements more deliberate, driving her to a reckless frenzy of passion. In one moment, she writhed in delicious anguish. In the next, the breath caught in her lungs, and time suddenly hung like a pocketwatch suspended from a chain.

Then they sailed free together, soaring breathlessly like they had over the waterfall, until they plunged earthward and their hot bodies sizzled into the cool, calming waters of repletion.

Sakote was afraid to move. Never had he felt such ecstasy. Mati had shattered him like obsidian beneath the blow of the adz. He dared not shift for fear of crumbling to pieces. And yet, he’d never felt more whole.

The pleasure games were satisfying, but they were nothing like this...this exchange of souls. He felt as one with Mati, as if they shared not only their bodies, but their spirits as well.

Even here in the dark, he’d never seen his path with such clarity. With Mati, he’d touched the face of The Creator. He knew now the power of a god. He knew what Wonomi intended, why his mother called him He Who Lives in Two Worlds. The Great Spirit wished him to join their two peoples—the Konkows and the whites—by joining with Mati, by making children with her.

He cupped her face in his hands—Mati, his beloved, his
kulem
—and for the first time in his life, he felt at peace. Happiness filled his heart and dampened his eyes.

"My heart is with you, Mati," he breathed again, but this time, the words had true power. Mati
was
the woman of his heart.

For Mattie, the days passed in idyllic bliss. The meadow grew knee-high with deergrass and foxtails. Refreshing spring showers coaxed orange poppies to spring up like bright jewels set in the emerald grass. Often she’d grab her sketchbook and wander off to the woods or down to the stream or toward the rise overlooking the canyon. It was impossible to capture everything on paper, but Mattie returned each day with at least a dozen sketches.

The Konkows grew accustomed to her habits. They no longer tagged along to spy on her when she left the village to sketch, which was fortunate. Otherwise, they would have learned every intimate detail about her couplings with Sakote. They’d had so many of them, in every possible setting, from the cradling crook of an ancient oak to the bracing cold of the creek bed, that it was a wonder they hadn’t been caught. It made her cheeks flame to recall their last encounter, high on a canyon ledge by the light of the rising sun.

Mattie had never felt closer to the earth, to nature, to truth than when she lay naked with Sakote in the wild of the wood and the warmth of the sun. It was this emotion the Pre-Raphaelite artists spoke of, she was sure—the clarity of the soul, born of the pure expression of nature in its unadorned glory. Nothing was more dramatic, more moving, more beautiful.

If she lived here forever, Mattie knew she could never capture all the splendor around her. With the vast sky for a canvas, Sakote’s Creator was a far more inspired artist than she could ever hope to be. On one morning, thunderheads curled on the horizon like the heavy beards of grumbling old men. On another, the heavens burned so clear and pure and blue that it made Mattie’s eyes water to look at them.

And even on days when the canopy was only a wash of gray and nature turned a cold shoulder, Mattie always found nurturing warmth in Sakote’s arms. He brought her a comfort and security she’d never known, even as a child, when her parents might be gone for months at a time. And he brought nourishment, not only to her body, but to her hungering soul as well. His embrace made her forget the past. His kiss blinded her to the future.

In fact, her sense of time centered only around the coming Kaminehaitsen, for which the tribe busily prepared.

Today, the first day of the festivities, Mattie was caught up in the excitement. The spring air shimmered with life—darting yellow-jackets, flickering butterflies, swooping blue jays, and a fine mist of pine pollen that settled over everything like fairy dust.

She waded with her two Konkow sisters through the lush, flower-bedecked grass, toward the cedar grove, wearing the comfortable moccasins Sakote had made for her. They went to pick wild mint to brew into tea. Some of the other tribes had already arrived, and Mattie learned that just as in the Hardwicke household, guests expected to be greeted with refreshments.

Of course, the strange white woman had instantly become a topic of much conversation. The adolescents of the other tribes whispered conspiratorially behind their hands, mothers shooed their children away, and the elders frowned mistrustfully at her.

But, accustomed to disapproval, Mattie was undaunted. In fact, she decided to court their affections. It was her intent to serve the mint tea to the headmen of the other tribes herself. After all, pouring tea was a sign of hospitality in her civilized culture. Surely it was thus for the Konkows as well.

They were almost to the mint patch when her sisters stopped suddenly. Mattie heard voices, angry voices, coming from the forest. They spoke in the Konkow tongue, and the two girls listened with deepening scowls. But as they turned to retreat, hauling Mattie with them, she recognized Sakote’s voice.

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Surely it was a wicked thing, even in Konkow society, and her sisters seemed determined to drag her away. But she waved them off, and using the light, silent step Sakote had taught her, she drew closer until she could make out the shapes of several Konkow men among the trees.

Behind her, her sisters gestured frantically for her to come away, but curiosity got the better of her, so she ignored the girls until they gave up and marched home on their own.

She couldn’t understand the men’s words, but their sharp gestures and harsh, guttural syllables made it clear that they were engaged in some heated debate. One of the visiting Konkows, a headman by the looks of him, scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. Three of the elders with him did likewise. Sakote shook his head in refusal, and one of the younger men chattered at him, waving an accusing finger at his face. Sakote ran his hand through his hair in exasperation and spoke quietly to the others.

Mattie leaned against the pine trunk beside her. Even when colored with anger, the Konkow language was musical and engaging. It started deep in the chest and came out like the whisper of the wind. She could listen to Sakote speak his native tongue all day long. But it saddened her to see him so distraught. She wondered what troubled him.

As she watched, a beetle crawled down the tree trunk and across her hand, and she snatched back her arm to shake it off, stepping onto a pine twig with a distinct snap. All at once, a dozen pairs of angry male eyes pinned her to the spot. She swallowed hard, blushing furiously. Even Sakote looked vexed with her.

The chattering young Konkow resumed his prattle, smugly stabbing his finger toward her this time. Sakote barked something at the man over his shoulder, which instantly shut him up. Then he stared at Mattie with a tortured expression she couldn’t decipher.

Suddenly, she realized they’d been talking about
her
. Embarrassed, she turned away, wishing she could disappear or erase time and undo whatever it was she’d done.

Disappointment. That was what she’d seen in Sakote’s face. It surprised her that she hadn’t recognized it at once. After all, she’d lived under that curse most of her life. But coming from him, it dealt her a crushing blow. Unable to face him, she walked stiffly off, determined to remain stoic under the men’s scrutiny.

She’d gone barely a dozen paces from the tree when he caught her shoulder. She tried to break free, but he held on, wheeling her gently into the wall of his chest. He asked no questions and offered no explanation. He simply enveloped her in his arms, holding her to his heart and stroking her hair until she sank against him and surprised herself by weeping.

Sakote felt her tears on his chest as if they were his own, and yet he didn’t know how to stop them. For days, he’d soared as free as the eagle. He’d thought of nothing but Mati—the welcome of her smile, the smell of her skin, the comfort of her body. He’d deceived himself with dreams of their many moons to come, the children they would have and the peaceful winter of their lives together. But this day, that soaring eagle of his heart, so newly borne to the winds, now bore a bloody arrow in its breast.