Chapter 18 #3
His feelings didn’t really have anything to do with immortality, and everything to do with Sabrina.
He was in love with her. He’d told himself for so long that she was an obsession, but it was her pure fire that had attracted him in the beginning, and it was that fire he had fallen in love with as well.
If only…
He was leaving again, and that was all that mattered tonight.
He walked to his quarters quickly. When he threw open the door, he saw that Sabrina sat upon one of the chairs by the Dutch oven. When she saw him, she leaped to her feet and started to rush to him, pausing several feet in front of him.
“You’re free!” she breathed.
“No thanks to you,” he murmured.
She stared back at him, not contradicting his words. She’d taken her hair down and had been brushing it. In the firelight, it seemed a million shades of sable and deepest red.
He walked into the office, tossing his hat on his secretary, sinking into his own chair. He lifted a foot and an eyebrow. “Want to get my boots?”
She gnawed briefly on her lower lip, then apparently decided that she owed him. She pulled off one boot, then the other, and stood two feet away from him again.
“Sloan, what happened?”
“Well, I just spent a couple of hours in the stockade.”
“I know. But other than that—did Terry put you on report? Did he accuse you of attacking Jenkins for the wrong reasons? Will you have to go to any kind of a trial?”
He shrugged, watching her. “Terry is too involved with the coming expedition to create more friction than there already is. I’m not on report. Jenkins accused me of coming after him because he’s commented previously on the fact that I’m Sioux. There won’t be any trial; the matter is settled.”
He stood again, striding toward her. “Excuse me,” he said then, passing by her and going to the cupboard for a glass and a bottle of brandy. He poured himself some of the liquor and tossed it down. She stood behind him uncertainly for a moment.
“I’m sorry, of course. I didn’t mean to cause this kind of trouble. I—”
“You don’t need to be sorry. Jenkins had to be stopped.”
She was quiet a moment. “Well, I’m not sorry that you hit Lloyd, but I really am sorry it caused you trouble.” She hesitated again. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said. Then she added softly, “And I’m grateful for what you did. Thank you.”
She turned around, leaving him there, leaning against the cupboard. He hesitated, drinking down another glass of brandy more slowly.
Then he followed her into the bedroom.
She was already in bed, covered to her throat with the sheets and blankets. He disrobed and lay down beside her, determined that he didn’t give a damn about her mood. She could curl away; she could stiffen like an oak—it didn’t matter.
It was going to be too long before he saw her again.
To his amazement, before he had even lain down, she had rolled toward him. And to his further amazement…
She was naked.
He lay back, startled, then exhaling on a long breath. She felt that she owed him. Damn her. For a moment he was tempted to fling her away.
For a moment…
Only a moment…
Her hair fell over his flesh in soft waves, teasing his senses.
She placed dozens of light little kisses against his chest, the tip of her tongue just touching him.
She moved against him, moved down the length of him.
Her kisses fell against his shoulders and chest, and then his abdomen.
Her hair continued to brush against him with each of her movements.
Her fingers held and stroked him as the sensual softness of her body pressed against his.
She went lower.
Lower.
Then her hand was on him, holding, caressing…stroking. Hesitant at first; curious, even, perhaps…
Her lips teased his navel. She delved with her tongue.
His fingers wound into the length of her hair. His body throbbed with desire and in anticipation of what was to come.
She dipped lower still. Her teasing kisses fell against the pulse that throbbed so wickedly within his sex. Pure, delicious, unbelievable torture. She opened her mouth more fully and closed it around him. He nearly shot through the roof.
There was only so much he could bear of pleasure that was so exquisitely intense.
As the sensation built to a fever pitch, he cried out at last, drawing her up against him and taking her lips, then rolling with a swift, sure movement and pressing her down, down…
he kissed her lips and teased and suckled her breasts.
He still felt her hands against him, her fingertips lightly drawing patterns on his shoulders, his back, and then suddenly pressing harder into his flesh.
He inched down her body, as she had done with his.
His kisses followed a straight line from the valley of her breasts to her navel to the triangle of auburn hair at the junction of her thighs.
He tormented her wickedly with his tongue, all the while feeling as if the throbbing inside of him was something all but alive, sweetly torturing him beyond reason, and yet…
He wanted her to know that same feeling. Desire beyond reason. Hunger that must be sated. Remembered, cherished. He savored her sweetness, felt her tossing, turning, heard her crying out his name.
At last, he felt an urgency so great, it was finish…
Or die.
He rose above her, pressed the silk of her thighs far apart, and sank within her, taking her fully, his eyes on hers in the shadows of the night.
Her eyes closed. Her arms wrapped around him.
Held him tightly. He slid his hands beneath her buttocks, pressing ever more deeply into her.
He tried to move slowly at first; then he jackknifed into a wild, erotic rhythm, each thrust a sweet agony and anguish until he convulsed in a violent climax, sweeping into her again and again and again, until the last of his force was spent, and she shuddered beneath him in a series of tremors that matched his own. ...
She lay beneath him, imprisoned by his weight. She moved against him, as if burdened by it, and he quickly shifted. The night air was cool now that his body no longer burned with such fire. She shivered, curling slightly away from him.
She had come to him. It was what he had wanted.
But he felt strangely hollow.
He stared at the curve of her back and the spill of her dark hair over the covers. He leaned up on an elbow, watching her, wanting so much more and not knowing how to reach for it.
“Debt all paid?” he queried.
“Debt?” she repeated and spun around, staring at him in the dim light of the fire.
“Debt, of course. You’ve never initiated the least bit of intimacy before, but tonight…
well, you felt guilty about my being in the stockade.
So you paid your debt. And now you think that’s it.
I wonder who really owed who?” he demanded, his voice soft, yet husky with an undertone of anger.
“Because it seems that I’ve been paying ever since I married you. ”
She stared at him, her eyes widening, then narrowing. “If you’ve paid a price, it’s your own fault. I didn’t want—”
“You didn’t want to be married. But you did go through with it; you stated your vows, made your promises. Well, I warned you what I expected from a wife, and still, I am paying for something, and I’ll be damned if I know just what! Am I paying for my heritage, or my past, or is it just me?”
“I haven’t made you pay for anything!” she cried, rising on the bed as if she were about to escape it—and him. “I’ve been a good cavalry wife. I came with you to a frontier that frightened me, I’ve cooked, I’ve mended—”
“But I want more!” he informed her, and he caught her arm firmly, dragging her back down beside him.
“Damn you, Sloan!” she whispered. “You just don’t understand anything!”
“If you’re angry about Marlene—”
“I’m not; I simply don’t like her.”
“Oh, hell—”
“When you left her house, she came to her window.” She hesitated. “Exposed.”
His brows shot up; then he scowled darkly. “Fine—she causes trouble, and you think the worst of me.”
“No, not really—”
“Well, my love, you know what? Tonight, I just don’t give a damn.”
She tried to wrench free from his hold, so she could get out of their bed. He cast a leg over her hip, bearing her down with his weight.
“Sloan, you’re in a ruthless mood—”
“You bet. And I thought you were so grateful,” he taunted.
“I am grateful for what you did, but I’ve paid my debt.”
“You’ve just begun,” he assured her.
“Have I?” she demanded in return, her eyes smoldering in a furious challenge.
He held very still, staring down at her, in a tempest of emotion.
He was cavalry. He was riding away.
He didn’t want to argue or explain.
He just wanted his wife.
He caught her lips.
She was angry, wild. Yet…
The passion of her anger became the force with which they made love. It was shattering and sweet, exhausting. Yet he remained…hungry. For more. He was about to leave her. For the first time, he truly felt a sense of his own mortality. Life seemed far more important than duty or honor. He wanted…
He didn’t know exactly what he wanted. More. More than she could give.
To…
To dare to tell her that he was in love with her. He didn’t quite know if he could do that or not. He was supposed to have so much courage. But he lacked the courage he needed to bear the truth within his heart.
So he held her.
And held her.
Forced her to want him.
Until the night became the dawn. And she slept.
And he rose…
And then rode away.
He was cavalry.
And that was what cavalry did.