Chapter Thirty-Three
Where is he? Candice wondered lazily, still half asleep. She sighed and snuggled deeper beneath the heavy Navajo blanket, and all recollection of last night came flooding back to her. She had no choice but to flush furiously.
Jack had made love to her again and again, until they had both fallen into a deep, sated sleep, Candice curled up against his side with her face on his broad, warm chest. Sometime last night, too, she had woken up to find him throbbing against her leg, his hands moving slowly over her breasts, brushing erect nipples.
They had made love again, a slow, sensual, dreamlike mating. She smiled with the remembrance.
And then her smile abruptly disappeared.
She sat upright. Last night Shozkay would have made a decision regarding Hayilkah’s accusation that Jack had cheated him—that he wanted her back.
A terrible anxiety rose up in her. She didn’t think Jack would listen if Shozkay decided she should be returned—or would he?
She really didn’t know him. He was so different, so Apache, and she didn’t know or understand their ways.
Candice got up and pulled on her dress, running her fingers through her tangled hair. She ducked outside.
There was the usual activity in camp. She looked for Jack but there was no sign of him. She started across the camp to the gohwah Luz and Shozkay shared. The woman was kneeling over a hide, scraping hairs. She looked up and smiled.
Candice’s anxiety must have showed, because Luz said, “He is down by the creek.”
Her heart did a funny little flutter. “Thank you,” Candice said, and she was off, racing down one of the patte to the stream.
She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing by a boulder at the water’s edge, talking with Shozkay.
He was wearing only a loincloth and his knife, and was barefoot like she was.
The sun, streaking through the branches overhead, glinted on the delicate veins of gold in his dark hair.
His profile was breathtaking and perfect.
She had to admire the broad width of his shoulders and the packed muscle of his chest. He turned and saw her and stopped in midconversation, staring.
Candice couldn’t look away—but she did blush. The look he was giving her was that kind of look.
Shozkay laughed, patted Jack on the arm, and started toward her. Candice managed to tear her gaze from Jack to smile politely at his brother. “Good morning.”
Shozkay gave her a warm smile. “Good morning, nina.” He passed her and trudged back to the camp.
Candice remembered the reason she had been looking for him—or one of them. She started forward at a run. A smile lifted the corners of Jack’s mouth, and she abruptly saw where he was looking—at her breasts bouncing, the nipples hard. She slowed to a walk, giving him a look. “You are no gentleman.”
He grinned then, a dazzling expression. “True.”
She bit her lip, suddenly shy.
His smile faded and he gazed at her soberly for a long, searching moment. “Good morning, shijii.”
Shijii, she had learned last night, meant darling, although literally it meant my heart. The endearment elated her. “Good morning.”
He smiled again, this time softly. “Miss me?” He couldn’t disguise the hopeful expression.
She had. She was struck with the knowledge, but afraid to admit it. So she found a new topic. “What are you doing?”
“I came to bathe.”
They looked at each other again. “What is it, Candice?”
“About Hayilkah …” She trailed off. She wanted to touch him, to be touched. But in broad daylight the intimacy of last night seemed like a dream—except that they both knew it was real. She shifted.
“Hayilkah is very sick,” Jack said. “Shozkay has decided I have to bring him, or his family, a mare in foal to the black.”
“That means you don’t have to give me back to him?”
“That’s right.”
She felt relief, and it showed.
He lifted her chin. “Shijii, did you really think I’d give you to him? Let him touch you again?”
“I … I wasn’t sure.”
That bothered him, and his jaw tightened. Candice saw it and was sorry, but new worries were crowding the old. Were they now free to leave?
She pictured the High C and her family, and she felt a deep sense of dread. This was what she didn’t want to think about—her future. Returning. The condemnation, the scandal. And what about Jack?
“Candice, would you run and get me soap? It’s in my saddlebags.”
“Of course,” she said, knowing at this moment she would do just about anything for him. And she was glad of something to do other than think. “I’ll be right back.”
Five minutes later she returned with the soap and a clean blanket.
He was standing in the creek, naked, and she openly admired him, not without being affected by the sight.
She was now very much aware of the rise of desire—and what it promised.
He turned, and his eyes twinkled. “You make noise like a cow, a drunken cow, moving through the chaparral.”
Her eyes widened—he was teasing her! “Mooo!”
He chuckled. “You’re also as fast as a tortoise.”
“But as soft as a kitten,” she purred.
He laughed. “With claws, I know.”
She blushed at the reference to her wild passion.
“Give me the soap.”
“Step closer to the bank.”
“Throw it.”
“No.”
“No?” His tone was exaggerated.
“If you want it, you’ll have to come here and get it.”
He grinned. “You are asking for big trouble, ish’tia’nay.”
“Very big trouble,” she said pointedly, looking at his swelling groin.
He gave her a look.
She giggled.
He charged.
She ran.
He caught her easily and swept her up into his arms. She shrieked playfully and pretended to fight. “Someone else I know needs a bath,” he declared.
“No,” she cried in mock fear. “The water is cold!”
He waded in and held her a few feet above it.
“Let me down, Jack,” she demanded.
“Okay,” he said, laughter in his voice.
She tensed, waiting to be heaved.
He released her legs so that her body swung down against his, still suspended, and he began to lower her very slowly, looking into her eyes. Playfulness vanished. Her eyes widened and she slid down his body, the dress riding up. His hands were on her buttocks.
“Put your legs around my waist,” he said.
She obeyed and he set her on his straining manhood. She gasped. He laughed. A hoarse, sensuous sound. He had nothing to lean her against, and their position was awkward without support. “Now what?” she breathed shakily.
“I’m going to come inside you,” he said.
She gasped and he captured her mouth, dropping slowly to his knees and setting her on her back in the shallow water without ever withdrawing. They began moving together, slowly and rhythmically, reaching a hot climax simultaneously.
“You’re insatiable,” Candice said, smiling, brushing her hair off his cheekbone.
His gray eyes, sated now and solemn, moved over her face as she continued to toy with the strands. “You make me that way.”
She wanted it to be true. Oh, she did. “Really?”
“How can you doubt it?”
Her hand slid to his hard shoulder. “I don’t know. You’ve had others, other women …”
“Not many and not often. And never like you.”
She inhaled with sharp pleasure, then turned her head to his and sought his mouth with hers.
Her lips brushed his softly, and when she pulled slightly back, she saw that his eyes were closed, his expression almost strained.
She wondered what dark emotions and darker thoughts wrenched his soul so that he would come to her with unquenchable, fierce need.
“We’d better bathe,” Candice said.
He opened his eyes and kissed her breast before sitting. She stood, very much aware of being naked in broad daylight, and she reached for the blanket to cover herself from his gaze. He caught her wrist. “Don’t. You have nothing to hide from me.”
She colored. “It’s just …” Her color deepened. “It’s not right … the middle of the day …” Like some harlot.
“I know every inch of you.”
She let him pull the blanket away. “I love every inch of you,” he said.
Trying not to feel self-conscious, she walked into the water and began to bathe. He watched her with undisguised interest and pleasure for a while before standing and joining her. He began lathering his legs. “Candice?”
She was rinsing her hair, trying not to think about bathing in broad daylight with a man. “Yes?”
“We could leave today.”
She was silent. The words rang, especially could. She ducked under the water again and came up pushing her hair out of her face.
“Hayilkah might die. I want to stay here until the danger is past.”
Her heart had its own mind and it was jubilant. “That’s fine,” she said, relief gushing through her.
For the first time, they looked at each other. Neither one wanting to openly bring up the question that they were both thinking. What happens when we go back?