"So kind," Blaze murmured, as if she were casually responding to a polite compliment at a garden party. As carefully as an artist adjusting his model to best catch the light, Blaze disposed herself to Hazard's gaze. She knew how the warm fire cast its glow, she knew how it gleamed, illuminated her form, glistened off her skin. She knew how long Hazard had been without a woman, and she knew from gossip in Virginia City that he was not inclined to celibacy.
Taking a hairpin from the table—one of three she'd worn in her hair the day she climbed the mountain to Hazard's claim—she swept up her bright hair lying on her shoulders, stood arms upraised, pinning the mass of hair atop her head. Her cool white neck was exposed in profile, her breasts, drawn up with the motion, stood up-thrust, their nipples outlined through Hazard's shirt. And her pale legs were invitation with the elevation of her arms, up to the gentle curve of her bottom.
Hazard felt the terrible kindling of lust, felt his growing erection stretching the soft elkskin pants he wore, but he couldn't take his eyes off her. "A regular little Jezebel," he murmured drily. "Very lovely, but patently transparent."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Blaze replied to the man sprawled on the fur robes, his hands clasped behind his head. If she'd been able to see, she would have been gratified to observe his knuckles white with tension under the silky black hair.
"You know damned well what I'm talking about," he growled softly, and moved slightly to adjust the growing pressure against the pliant leather.
Blaze's clear blue eyes, innocent as spring skies, drifted over his supine form with angelic purity. "I simply hadn't time for my bath earlier in the day," she softly said, slowly unbuttoning the shirt, "with all the domestic details you insist on." She smiled a virtuous smile, unfastened the last button and dropped the cotton shirt to the floor. She wore nothing now, firelight rimming her. Her flesh breathed sweetness and wanting, and her high, rounded breasts trembled as if they felt his touch already. There was a smile on her lips, mysterious, proud, submissive, timid—but above all waiting. Infinitely soft and waiting.
Hazard unobtrusively sucked in his breath. "Very amusing," he said as casually as possible given the sudden quickening of his body. "Amusing, but useless."
"What a suspicious man." And so saying, Blaze partially turned and slowly bent over to test the temperature of the water in the large copper tub.
The alluring position, the satiny swell of her bottom, the languid curve of hip, thigh, slender leg, the deliberate exposure and teasing sight of all he so desperately desired, forced a deeply drawn breath from Hazard like that of a drowning man. I must not, he thought. I must not. But the sight of her recalled the last time he'd held that warm body beneath his and felt her close around him. For the space of five tautly silent seconds, he lay rigid, taking in the enticing female flesh, the provocative invitation so willingly offered and then, on a sudden expulsion of the suffocatingly held breath, he tossed aside the pillow under his head and came to his feet like a hawk rising, his lean, hard body borne on wings of fire.
He was across the small distance in two strides, pulled her upright, spun her round, and pinned her against the rough softness of the unplaned wooden wall with such force he felt her flinch. His body pressed with savage fierceness against the full length of her, forced itself against breast, hip, thigh, and Blaze, with a racing heart, felt the hardened arousal, strong and flagrant, burning to have her. "Damn you," he huskily whispered, his hands gripping her convulsively, his body straining into hers, "the pretty Bostonian bitch is in heat and the scent was irresistible, as you well knew. I hope your hot little body knows what it's taken on."
In mute answer, her small hands came up to cling to his firm muscled shoulders, her eyes reflecting the intensity in his. He silently cursed himself one last time before he capitulated and his hungry mouth took hers. It was a brutal kiss, impelled by his lust, frustration, betrayed sense of honor. He thrust at her with all the violence of detestable longing, of wanting things forbidden. She had won, and he despised himself for wanting her, for one brief second more before reason fled. He could not wait —only hot-blooded, ungovernable feeling mattered now.
He tore at his leggings, his mouth feverishly eating hers, hers opening under his, a sense of being swept away by a flood coursing wildly through him. With a frantic brutality, he savagely bruised her mouth, devoured her, struggling to free himself from the impeding elkskins. He pulled away, for two seconds, no more, and his erection was free. He took her quickly, standing, unable to wait the few moments it would have required to carry her to the bed or lower her to the floor. And she welcomed him with wildness and warmth, her arms flung around him as if she would bind him to her with a matching fierceness.
The top of his head felt as if it were lifting away. His surging need was released at once, flooding spasms deep inside her, and she met him with a violence that shocked them both. He covered her cheeks, her eyes with kisses. "De awa-gee-shick, de awa-gee-shick," he whispered, his breath in fast, deep pants warm against her cheek, paradise flowing over him like corporeal enchantment. Her fingers slid into his hair and she lightly held the strong head as it moved over her face. And she felt on fire, glowing with a restless cataclysmic exaltation that only this dark-haired glorious man could quench.
In a few moments he was still, his face buried in her neck, their hearts thudding like jungle drums. Mere seconds had passed since he'd left the buffalo robes. Lifting his head, still breathing hard, he apologized in an abbreviated murmur, then carried her to the bed of buffalo robes, where he spent the next hour pleasing her leisurely in all the ways he knew so well.
He teased her after the second time, taking her to the brink and playfully stopping. Then one time she went on without him and after, she laughed, a warm, bubbling merriment. "I don't need you," she said, her grin wicked.
"That's the joy of it," he murmured, his hair brushing her cheeks, "… the discovery. It can be new each time." And with each woman, he reflected. And smiled in return at her beaming face.
"I want more."
"You"—Hazard kissed her—"always do."
"And more and more."
"Greedy child." He kissed her again. "Enjoying the banquet of life?"
"Ummmmmm." She sighed and reached up, pulling him closer.
Her arms were strong. It always amazed him. "Is that," Hazard asked, amusement rich in his voice, "a yes?"
She began kissing him, lightly, softly, trailing kisses down his face. She kissed his smiling mouth, his amused eyes, the curving line of his hard jaw. And he kissed her back, tasting the sweetness of her mouth and cheek and downy brows. Then she pushed him on his back in a quick, solid shove and began moving downward with her warm mouth and tongue. At waist level he touched her head. "You don't have to," he quietly said, uncertain of her motives.
Partially turning her face, her eyes came up and met his, eyes hot, steamy, and alive with passion. Her soft pink tongue trailed slowly over his taut stomach, then stopped. "But I want to," she murmured. And her head moved down.
He lifted his hand to pull her up but then her tongue delicately touched him there and his hand dropped away. With a swift intake of breath his belly contracted with the caressing upward stroke of her warm mouth and in seconds he was rigid with an intensity that almost hurt.
"Do you like that?" she asked some moments later, her tongue giving an affectionate lick. She looked up at him, past his swollen maleness rising proudly fierce, up past the horizontal plane of his stomach and chest.
His eyes opened at the sound of her voice and he forced himself back from the ragged edges of ecstasy. His dark lashes swept upward with infinite languor and he looked down at the soft-voiced woman lying between his legs. "Ummmm," he softly exhaled, several trembling horizons beyond conversation.
Her tongue came out again and touched his velvet smoothness, jarring his burning nerve endings. He gasped. "Is that," she said, a smile curving her full mouth, "a yes?" Her tongue lazily traveled up the pulsing veins to the massive crest. And drawing in a deep breath, he nodded.
She smiled again and slowly drew it into her mouth, and the focus of his body was under her warm lips. He tensed and his hands went to her shoulders, then slid up to cup her head.
Blaze was enjoying the sense of power her touching him revealed, enjoying the pleasure she gave him, enjoying his surrender to her. His ringers tightened in her hair and she sensed his tremble before it began.
Suddenly she was lifted up and found herself on her back, Hazard's need for her an instinctive driving force. He wanted to be inside her; he wanted to see her face when he climaxed; he wanted to see her face when she wrapped herself around him. It mattered suddenly that he touch her as well as she touch him, and he crushed her fiercely to him, sliding inside as if it were home. A primordial possessiveness overcame him, primitive yet complex. He'd never felt that way before, and if it were called to his attention, he wouldn't have welcomed the observation.
She responded to him with the same astonishing fire that struck him afresh each time, arching up hungrily to feel him deep inside, holding him with trembling fingers, low, at the base of his spine, so she could keep him a second longer with each downthrust. Bodies locked in melting delirium, the world was theirs, the universe within.
No wine or roses or gifts of precious jewels, no aphrodisiacs or passionate poetry, no coy preambles or elegant repartee. Only feeling. A naked, blind spark between two diametrically different people inciting a frightening longing as intense, as mutual as their joined bodies. It had happened to them both, without warning, a wild, rushing torrent sweeping everything aside in a spare, firelit cabin on a pine-covered mountain range three thousand feet above sea level.
The lovers were approaching the stratosphere and climbing. "De awa-gee-shick," he whispered again into the tumbled curls behind her ear, "de awa-gee-shick."
"Now, Jon. Now." And she cried at the end, a soft, expiring whimper of loving release.
THEY lay very warm, very sated, on the buffalo robes, bright gilded by the fire. Sprawled on his back, Hazard held Blaze in a loose embrace as she lay half draped across his chest.
"De awa… de awa gee," she stumbled, mispronouncing the words, her breath little ripples across his skin. "What does it mean?"
His eyes widened in surprise. Although it was half formed, he recognized the phrase "I love you." He didn't remember saying it. He shrugged, a small casual shrug. "Love words, that's all. Endearments."
Blaze hadn't been able to see his eyes. She only saw and felt the shrug. "I know, but what kind of love words?" Her finger trailed over the ridges of his ribs.
"The kind women like to hear," he said, evasive to her persistence.
"Translate it for me." And this time she propped her chin on his chest and looked at him with that directness of hers that always reminded him of a curious ten-year-old child.
He touched her straight perfect nose with a fingertip. "Bia-cara," he said, smiling, "it's one of those inverted colloquialisms that loses in the translating."
"Does bia-cara lose as well?" she asked, a tiny peppery spark appearing in her large blue eyes.
"No," he replied, feeling himself back on safe ground. "That, puss," and his fingertips slipped across the fullness of her lower lip, "means 'sweetheart.' And you are, chad-gada-hish-ash, my little red fox, the sweetest of sweethearts." He lifted his head from the pillow and kissed the curls near her forehead. "Do you think," he went on, shifting his position so he was resting back on both elbows, looking down at her, "we should make use of that tub?" It would be, he thought, an alternative to her questions, which he didn't care to answer. "I'm hot and sticky and you're hot and…" His foot came up and stroked the soft curve of her arch. "Should we?"
"Uh-uh, I'm too lazy," Blaze replied, her head still on his chest. "And besides"—she sighed, feeling the hard muscles of his torso under her cheek—"the water's probably cold by now."
Lifting her away as easily as if she were a kitten, he placed her beside him on the tumbled furs. "I'll warm the water, bia-cara, and carry you over to the tub." He was looking down at her now, his black eyes soft as velvet. "That shouldn't be too strenuous."