Chapter 10 #2
“You told me if I wanted a wife, I would have a wife. Your words, your promise. Tonight, I want a wife.” She was startled by the tension in his features above her in the near darkness.
She swallowed hard, twisting her face from his in the darkness.
Dreading his touch, anticipating it, yearning for it.
What could she possibly do now? Revise at this late moment what she had said before?
You may have a wife anytime you want, just as long as you touch no other woman.
Let him know that unbidden jealousy tore at her heart. It made no sense, really, but it was there.
She stared at him again. “Fine. You’re right. Take what you want. Any time. But again, I swear, I’ll give you nothing. Nothing. Until…”
She broke off, gasping. His lips were on her flesh. His mouth closing over her breast. Subtly stroking, moving, suckling. His hands…on her body. Thrusting between her thighs. His fingers touching, rubbing, parting…
She nearly cried out loud in anguish, but she willed herself to silence.
Just as she willed herself not to move. Not to give. Not to deny, but not to give…
Damn him.
The feel of his flesh, his lips and teeth, the stoke of his tongue.
Damn his bold intimacy. Damn him, damn him, damn him.
She clenched her teeth together hard. Tossed her head to the side.
Felt him, felt sensations so newly awakened, so prepared to come awake again, flesh so tender, to be stroked, caressed, kissed…
Him. On top of her. Filling her. The feel, the friction, the speed, the fever—it was unbearable. She would not give! She’d have back her soul, please God…
In the end, she never made a voluntary move.
She never had to. He had the satisfaction of feeling what she could not hide, the constriction that seized her, the trembling that shook her, the liquid heat encompassing him.
But that was all. She gave nothing more.
Nothing more at all. It didn’t seem to bother him.
He reached his own climax, his body locked atop hers, once again, and again.
He held there a long while, still within her.
She refused to open her eyes. She barely breathed.
“How long will you play this game, I wonder?” he queried, studying her face when he withdrew from her at last. She turned her back on him, furious with men in general. They never seemed to understand anything.
“Have it your way then, Lady Douglas,” he said at last.
“Would you stop that mockery?” she demanded, still resentful that it seemed she had managed nothing more than to amuse him.
“Which mockery is that, since all seems mockery to you?”
“Lady Douglas.”
“You are Lady Douglas. You’ve been most insistent about informing me of that fact.”
“I will never be Lady Douglas to you,” she said, wishing she could draw away from him completely. She felt like an injured cat. She wished she could lick her wounds. But she could not. She could turn from him, but it seemed she couldn’t escape him completely.
He was silent a long moment. “Skylar,” he said. It was the first time she could ever remember his using her given name. She had even wondered at times if he remembered what it was.
He leaned over her shoulder in the shadows. She felt the brush of his ink-black hair against the flesh of her shoulder. “Skylar, you are mistaken. It seems you are Lady Douglas,” he told her, adding, “Indeed, you are to me and to everyone else.”
He shifted, turning his back on her. She lay in silence, wishing she could sleep. Wishing that she didn’t feel both the closeness of his body and the distance that lay between them.
Eventually, she slept. She dreamed. Distorted dreams that her mind couldn’t seem to hold on to. Yet sometime during the night, she woke, frightened, and not at all certain as to why she was afraid. She’d been alone, she thought. Alone, and she’d needed help so badly. She sat up, shivering.
“What is it?”
She jumped, startled. She wasn’t alone. He remained with her. He lay at her side, his dark head upon a white pillow, his eyes opened, seeing more in the darkness than she, she was certain.
“Nothing,” she whispered, swallowing uneasily.
“Come back to sleep.” It was more of an impatient command than an invitation, yet somehow…
There was something almost normally domestic about it.
“It’s at least another hour until dawn,” he informed her.
His long dark fingers fell upon her arm in the moonlight.
He pulled her back down. Against him. His arm remained around her.
Her back was tucked to his chest. She could feel his chin atop her head, his movement as he smoothed down her hair to keep it from tickling his nose.
She could feel the smoothness of the flesh on his chest, the ripples of the muscles beneath.
She could feel the hardness of his hips and the bulk of his relaxed sex against her buttocks.
For a few seconds she dared not move or breathe.
She felt the rhythmic pulse of his heart.
Slowly, she felt more at ease. She closed her eyes. Drifted.
She was warm.
And she wasn’t alone.
When he awoke, she still slept. He found himself propped on an elbow, regarding her again with a brooding deliberation.
How long had she been a part of his life now?
Three days? How long since he had actually verified their legal relationship and taken possession of her as a wife?
Not quite two days. So why was it that he felt she had seeped inside of him?
Why was it he still felt such a keen fury to shake her, make her explain?
Take the hostility she held against him like a steel shield and snap it and break it.
He rose quietly, washed, and dressed in the clothing he had shed the night before.
Today they were going to bury his father.
The father he’d trusted. The father who had saddled him with this impossible, exquisite woman.
This woman who had influenced his father’s last will and testament, something that still shook him to the core.
And hurt. And she’d been there when David had died.
He had not.
He stood over the bed for a moment, remembering the silver fire in her eyes and the flippant tone she’d used when mocking him last night.
He smiled, then let fly with a firm whack against the tempting ivory curve of her buttocks.
She instantly jumped up with an indignant cry, drawing tangled skeins of golden hair from her face as she looked up at him—ready for warfare.
“Sorry, my love, but it’s going to be a very busy day. I’m sure Megan will need help and direction from the mistress of the house. I have no idea how many people may arrive, but the Reverend Mathews is due at half past three.”
He turned and left before she could reply. Something struck the door behind him. He smiled, but his smile faded as he walked down the stairs. Willow and Lily had already arrived and were hanging black crepe over the front door and window frames.
He hurried down the steps, greeting Willow, kissing Lily.
He was very fond of his cousin’s wife. Lily had come west because she’d been a sixteen-year-old girl left with nothing at the war’s end.
She’d joined with a musical troupe and been part of a revue in Dodge City for many years.
Heading farther out west, her company had been waylaid by a band of Cheyenne on the warpath soon after what had become known as the Sand Creek Massacre—the total devastation of a Cheyenne and Arapaho village by the army.
Lily had been spared. She’d been taken as a second wife by a Cheyenne warrior who had later been killed.
The Cheyenne and the Sioux had often formed alliances in those years.
Lily had come to the Oglala, and Willow had become smitten with her.
She’d lived an Indian life for many years, but there was little doubt that Willow’s decision to live in a lodge house had been influenced by his wife and his love for her.
“Hawk, Dark Mountain has just arrived,” Lily told him. “He is in with your father now.” She was a small, attractive woman with dark red hair and a smattering of freckles. He squeezed her hand, glancing at Willow. “I’ll talk with Dark Mountain.”
“I’ll see that you’re not disturbed,” Willow told him.
Hawk nodded and entered the parlor where his father lay.
Dark Mountain, his best friend from his boyhood days in the Sioux camp, stood by the coffin.
He had apparently opened the lid, and now he closed it again.
He was a tall warrior, dressed completely in buckskin, two feathers worn in his hair, symbols of his triumphs in important battles.
“Thank you for coming,” Hawk said, speaking in Sioux, which had been his first language.
Dark Mountain nodded gravely and embraced him. “I am the only one who will come from the Crazy Horse people,” he told Hawk. “Your father was a great man who will be missed by all. Crazy Horse has said, though, that you will understand that he and his followers cannot come here now.”