Agnes and the Renegade (Men of Defiance) (18 page)

Chayton spread one of the two blankets he’d brought over the sand and pebbles at the side of the wide lake. When he turned back, he caught Aggie as she was unbuttoning her camisole. His intense gaze locked on her hands. Aggie stopped moving. His gaze lifted to her face. He didn’t speak or move, but she knew he wanted her to continue. She unfastened the remaining buttons. His gaze stroked the column of white skin revealed by the slightly open panels of flimsy cotton.
 

When he started walking toward her, her heartbeat sped up. He touched her collarbone, then drew his fingers downward in a light caress until he came level with her breasts. He looked into her eyes. She locked on to his gaze, feeling heat swirl in strange places inside her body. He pushed one panel of her chemise aside. Aggie’s breathing became shallow as his fingertips moved over the swell of her breast, navigating to her now-erect nipple. Her lips parted. He stroked her sensitive peak with his fingertips, then rubbed his open palm over the tight nipple.

His gaze lifted to meet hers. His eyes were intense, hungry. He moved his hand to her other breast, cupping her as he drew her against himself. “I want to see you. All of you. With your hair down. I want to feel your body against mine.”

“Someone will see us—”

“No one knows of this hidden place. We will not be disturbed.”

Aggie hesitated, then pulled her chemise off.
 

The tension deepened in his face as he looked at her bare torso. “And those.” He nodded at her bloomers. “What do you call them?”

“Bloomers. Pantalettes. Underwear. Many things, I guess.”

“Take them off.”

Aggie did as he asked. He sucked in a sharp pull of air when at last she stood before him fully nude. Feeling the air on her stomach and thighs was a decadent sensation. “And you? Are you going to stay clothed?”

“No.” He unfastened the wide leather strap about his hips that held his breechcloth in place and pushed it off. When he straightened, she could not take her eyes off his fully aroused member. The nude men Theo had had her paint had not been erect; they’d looked nothing like Chayton did at this moment. He was heavy and rigid, his penis pointing forward at an angle.

He reached for her and pulled her up against his body. She stretched her arms up around his shoulders. His hands were on her back, moving up and down, feeling her shoulders, spine, and bottom. He kissed her neck, her shoulder, her chin. “Release your hair. I want to feel that, too.”

Aggie pulled her hairpins free and dropped them by her chemise. She forked her fingers through her hair, smoothing it out for him. He reached up and took handfuls of it, wrapping it about his fists as he lifted one, then the other, to his face.

“Agkhee,” he whispered as he bent his forehead to hers, “Agkhee, I cannot wait longer.” He kissed her as he walked them backward to the blanket, kissed her as they knelt down, kissed her as he leaned her back on the blanket. He pressed his body down on hers, firing off powerful sensations she’d never before experienced. He smiled at her, but his eyes looked sad.
 

He kneed her legs apart and settled himself against her most secret flesh, rocking against her in a slow, easy motion that made her hunger for more, for a deeper contact. She knew he would eventually enter her, a thought that filled her with fear and excitement. How she craved a complete connection with him. She spread her legs wider.
 

He held his weight on his elbows, giving himself room to kiss and taste her skin. His mouth was gentle as he made his way from the center of her throat down to the valley between her breasts. She gasped when he took hold of her breast. Pointing her nipple upwards, he sucked her sensitive peak. Aggie cried out and arched beneath him. She gripped his shoulders as he repeated that ministration with her other breast.
 

His long hair spilled over his shoulders to trail over her sensitized skin. He looked up at her, then reached up to touch her cheek. God, she loved his eyes. So intense, as eloquent and changeable as the moody plains. She lifted herself up on her elbows to watch as he took hold of himself, stroking between her legs with his hardened penis. He rubbed himself at the apex of her core, over an area so sensitive she cried out again. He looked up at her and grinned. She didn’t return his joy. She wanted more of what he’d just done.
 

Reading her body’s cues, he did just that, stroking forward and back. Her body started to move as if with a mind of its own, pressing back against his thrusts. As a strange feeling started to overtake her, he pushed himself into her. He was thick and hard, stretching her. Aggie groaned, her body registering dozens of new sensations.
 

“Oh, Chayton. Oh.”

He answered her in Lakota. She didn’t understand his words, but his teeth were clenched, his nostrils flared. Sweat made a fine sheen on his chest. He was inching forward, holding a fist around himself as if he feared going too deep too fast. She arched her hips, pushing herself up to meet him.
 

“Chayton, let me feel you. Please.”

“Agkhee—it has been so long. I will not be able to go slowly.”

“I don’t want slow. Please, Chayton.”

He moved his hand away, plunging himself into her slick body. She cried out. He rocked over her, watching her, his gaze locked on her eyes. He was solemn. Intense. She could feel every movement he made, in and out, his hips rolling against hers. He slipped his hands between their bodies and touched that wonderful spot he’d stroked with his penis. Aggie dug her heels into the blanket as a force she never knew existed within her exploded to life. She bucked against his body, lifting her legs to wrap around his, holding him in place while her body throbbed and writhed beneath his.
 

His thrusts began in earnest. He pounded into her despite the tight hold of her legs. The sensation that had started to abate roared to life again. She groaned as she felt him stiffen at the same time, his sex pulsing inside of her. He stayed joined with her as her tremors slowly calmed, watching as her eyes regained focus. She reached up and brought his face down to hers. She kissed him, her mouth closed, then open. Their tongues met and stroked each other.

“
Čhéye šni yo
. Don’t cry, Agkhee,” he translated, swiping away a tear from the corner of her eye.
 

“I’ve missed you all of my life, even before I knew it was you I was missing. I can’t believe I found you.”

He kissed her forehead, then took hold of her hand and brought it to his heart. “Your light fills my dark heart.”

She stroked his hair. “I love you, Chayton.”

“
Thečhíȟila
.” He smiled at her frown. “It means ‘I love you.’ I will teach you my language now that you are my wife.” He eased himself from her body, then sat up and reached a hand for her. “Let us go into the water.”

“I can’t swim.”

“We will stay on the edge of the fall, but I will teach you to swim while we are here, too.” He led her along a wide path that rose over steps of neatly placed rocks, up to the side of the waterfall. She laughed at the feel of the sun and breeze on her nude body. They were playing outside, naked. It was such a freeing feeling that she thought she might never put her clothes back on.
 

The water there splashed gently down as it spilled side to side down polished granite boulders. The water was cold, but the day was hot. Chayton wrapped an arm around her waist, then turned with her so that they faced the valley. He propped her hands on either side of the little alcove. Water washed down over them. The midday sun lit the red canyon walls like fire and turned the green lake into a living emerald. The beauty of the vista before them overwhelmed her. She went to her knees. Chayton sat down with her, keeping a hand around her waist. He didn’t speak, didn’t shift his hold on her, didn’t in any way interfere with her concentration.

After a long while, she leaned back against him and wrapped her arms over his, which still banded her waist. “I don’t want to ever leave.”

“We have no need to hurry our visit.”

“What about our horses?”

“They are pastured with the herd. They have no need of us.”

“Can we live here?”

“No.” He kissed the side of her hair. “It is a sacred place that cannot belong to anyone because it belongs to everyone already. But we can come here as often as you like.”

“I can’t wait to sketch this.”

He nodded. “I will catch fish for supper.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sarah sat in the shade of the front porch, which was perfectly situated to receive the afternoon breeze. Unfortunately, today that breeze was as hot as an oven, shade or no shade. White Bird paced with an excess of nervous energy. They’d come outside to read while they awaited the arrival of Chayton’s grandmother, Ester Burkholder.

The household had been in an uproar since yesterday when they received her telegram that she’d arrived in Defiance and would set out for the Circle Bar the next morning. They’d laundered all the bed linens, swept the entire house, beat the carpets, and washed the windows. And then Sarah and White Bird had set about baking fresh bread, pies, and cookies so that they’d have something delicious to offer Mrs. Burkholder.

“White Bird, do you think you could try to sit quietly? It’s far too hot to be so agitated.”

Her foster daughter turned from the railing and gave her such a soulful look that Sarah opened her arms. “Come here, child.” At nine years old, she was too big to sit on Sarah’s lap, but still small enough to slip onto the seat next to her. “What has you so distraught this afternoon?”

She looked up at Sarah with her big brown eyes. “What if my great-grandmother doesn’t like me?”

Sarah felt a little frisson unsettle her nerves. Her worry was not if Mrs. Burkholder wouldn’t like White Bird—for who could resist the little girl’s kind eyes or sweet temperament? Her greater concern was whether Chayton’s grandmother would insist on taking over fostering her.

She gave White Bird a little hug. “If she doesn’t like you, or your dad, or anyone, then we will politely ask her to leave. We don’t need to give hospitality to anyone who comes here merely to judge us. But consider this situation from her shoes. She spent long years looking for her daughter—your grandmother—only to learn that her child passed away. And her daughter’s only surviving child—your father—wants nothing to do with her. I don’t think she even knows about you. I know you’re nervous to meet her, but she must be equally worried about what she’ll be met with here. How brave she is to face this head on.”

“Do you think my
até
is truly her grandson, Sarah
-m'amá
?”

“I don’t know if your father’s her grandson. I’m not sure it could be proven one way or the other. Perhaps it’s something they’ll know when they meet each other. Perhaps he’ll remember some detail about your grandmother that could only be if she was Mrs. Burkholder’s daughter.”

“Look!” White Bird pointed toward a dust cloud rising on the hill above the house. “She’s here!”

Sarah tensed, then forced herself to appear calm. “Go get Logan. Ask him and Sid to wait for us in the living room. Then stay with Maria until I call for you.”
 

Logan stepped out to the porch about the same time the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the house. He wrapped an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and gave her a reassuring smile. The shotgun rider jumped down and opened the passenger door to give Mrs. Burkholder a hand down. Logan’s foreman came out from the side of the house and directed the driver to pull the carriage around back to the stable, where they could see to the horses and get the men some grub.

Sarah studied the woman coming up the porch stairs. She looked to be in her early seventies. Her face was paper white, and her hair—what little Sarah could see beneath her bonnet—was a mixture of blond and gray. She was slim, her posture straight, her shoulders square. Though she carried a cane, she had only the slightest hitch in her walk.
Vim and vigor
, Sarah’s father would have said.

She wore a linen traveling suit in a lovely shade of lavender. Yards of crisp lace spilled from her jacket’s neckline, colored beige from the fine dust of the trail. Sarah wondered if she weren’t desperately hot given the day’s terrible heat.
 

“Mrs. Burkholder, I’m Logan Taggert. And my wife, Sarah. Welcome.”
 

Sarah stepped forward to greet her.
 

“Good day, Mr. Taggert, Mrs. Taggert.” The woman leaned slightly on her ebony cane.
 

“Was the trip terrible?” Sarah asked.

Mrs. Burkholder’s brow lifted. She eyed Sarah as if she’d been asked a flippant question. “It was as you might expect. Long, dirty, rough, and hot, but mercifully direct.”

Sarah gestured toward the front door. “Perhaps you would like to refresh yourself before our visit? I have refreshments waiting for us in the living room.” She showed the woman inside. Maria hurried forward to take her suit jacket, gloves, and hat, then led her down the hall to the washroom. Her driver brought her luggage down to Sid’s room, which he’d vacated for her use.

Sarah went ahead to the parlor. Logan watched her come into the room. They exchanged a look full of worry and unspoken words. He needed no further urging to hurry to her side and wrap his arms around her. “It is for the best that we have this meeting, sweetheart. None of us can move forward with this hanging over our heads, including Chayton and Aggie.”

Sarah fought the tears welling in her eyes. “I will lose my heart if they take White Bird.”

Logan hugged her. “No one’s taking anyone. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

Sarah leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “I know. I know. We’ve been in worse situations and lived to tell.”

He smiled. “That’s my girl. God knows we have.” He handed her his handkerchief. “Now don’t let her see you cry. She’ll eat you alive and chew your bones for dessert.”

“That’s terrible.” She laughed and gave him a little shove. The break in her mood helped. She had herself composed by the time Logan’s stepfather, Sid, came into the room. The two men exchanged a hard glance. Sid had been in this situation before when Logan’s stepbrother, Sager, had first come home from his life with the Shoshone.