Authors: BRENDA WILLIAMSON
“Your name?” Eden gave him a confused look.
“My mother’s maiden name.”
Eden’s golden locks cascaded in waves to her shoulders and
down her back. He wound the soft tendrils around his hand.
“You’ve never taken a Pawnee wife?” Her voice made it sound
unbelievable.
“You are my woman.” He grasped her head again and pressed
his mouth to hers.
She kissed him back with all the passion he recalled as if
it were yesterday. His heart beat harder, excited by her response and he held
her tighter. She tasted sweet, honeyed by what she spread on a piece of bread
at her meal. Ignoring her whimpers, he savored the flavor of her tongue with
his own.
Eden’s wiggling continued, stirring his lust. His body
throbbed and his groin ached. He wanted her naked beneath him. His thoughts
stayed on that course as he rolled his hands up and down her back and around to
the front, searching for a way to release her clothing.
The buttons of her blouse gave his fingers trouble.
Impatient and aggravated, he pulled at the thin fabric and a number of the tiny
pearls snapped off. Her gasp of surprise didn’t stop him. He pulled at the
blouse more, raking it off her shoulder.
“Brant, no,” she cried, as he kissed her skin.
Her plea brought him to a halt.
The one woman he wanted to possess owned his soul. The fire
in her eyes, the puffs of her breath over his face, everything about her
beckoned his Pawnee blood to take her without hesitation.
She stared at him for a few seconds and then leaned her face
against his chest. Racked with emotional sounds, she clung to him.
“It’s been so long,” she cried.
When she looked up again, he kissed her gently.
She folded her arms around his head and he scooped her up.
He held her cradled to his chest without breaking the kiss. Her fingernails dug
into his hair and scratched at the back of his head.
For the first time since seeing her again, he felt there was
something salvageable in their relationship.
Brant lowered Eden onto the pallet of furs and blankets
making up his bed on the ground. He used to lay awake for hours thinking about
her being there with him.
As he sucked at her lips, quenching his long denied thirst
for her, endearments, confessions and declarations of love formed in his head. “Eden…”
“Brant, please.” Her words stopped his sentiments from
flowing out.
He paused from the ravishment of her beautiful mouth and
waited for her to speak. His heart ached with the love he had for her.
Her gaze lowered, laying the fan of golden lashes on her
cheeks for a moment. When her gaze lifted to meet his, he saw her withdrawing
from him.
“I don’t know you anymore.” She smoothed a hand over his
chest. “I can’t pretend everything is the same between us.”
The unsure tone in her voice wasn’t enough of a deterrent.
He’d not accept she didn’t want him. He’d never question if there were someone
else she had grown close to because he no longer cared. She belonged to him and
he’d do everything to make her love him.
Taking her mouth again, he tasted the salt of her tears and
felt the quaver of her responsive lips. All he had ever dreamed of having was
in his arms. He recalled every nuance of their lovemaking and the vibrant way
she seduced him with her emotions. He had to make everything the way it used to
be or he’d die of a broken heart.
Like a boy, overeager and impatient, he tugged at her
chemise. Kissing the top swell of her breast and every inch of her neck, he
jerked harder at her clothing.
Eden’s quiet repose stopped him completely. Lifting his
head, he examined her tear-stained cheeks. In all his imaginings, he had believed
she’d still want him. He didn’t have enough restraint to accept she’d be
unwilling to ease his suffering.
She tried to get up, out from under him. He pushed her back
to the mound of furs and captured her wrists, locking them in one hand to pin
her down.
“Brant, please don’t force me.”
Ignoring her plea, he bowed his head and kissed her on the
mouth. Dragging his lips across her cheek, he aimed for the pulse in her neck.
Raising her skirt, he shoved his hand between her smooth thighs and massaged
her warm flesh.
Out of control with lust, he cupped his hand against the
thin cloth covering her sex.
“Don’t make me afraid of you,” she begged.
“Damn you.” He rose quickly.
In reaction to his swift retreat, Eden flinched.
He knelt, slipped his hand beneath her head and brought her
to a sitting position. Holding her face, he stared into her tear-filled eyes. “I
would never hit you, Eden. No one will ever hit you again, I promise.”
He hated how much pain she suffered at the hands of her
father.
“I promise,” he repeated, brushing his finger over her damp
cheek.
She stretched up and kissed him. Then pulling his hand to
her partially concealed breast, she beckoned him closer with her other,
outstretched arm. When he leaned, she folded her arm around his neck.
As if she forgave his irrational acts, she welcomed him into
her embrace. In a few moves, she unlaced her chemise. He brushed the cloth
aside and touched her naked breasts. Anxious, he lowered to enjoy the mounds of
flesh.
Eden’s inhalation at the first touch of his lips to one of
her nipples arched her up. He moved to the other, circling the pebble-tipped
flesh with his tongue. Her stroking the back of his head calmed his concerns
that she acted out of fear.
“You are sweet like the clover honey,” he murmured, knowing
how she used to respond to gentleness.
The fluttering sound in her soft moans brought him up,
kissing the hollow at the base of her neck. She raised a leg and rubbed it
against his hip as he sucked on the pulse thumping beneath the delicate skin
along her neck.
He lifted at the hips and reached between them to untie his
britches. She moved her hand there as well. Her fingers wrapped his stiff shaft
and the light touch sent shivers through him.
Then she moved her hand up against his abdomen, stroking it
with her fingertips.
Quickly he dragged her skirt up, bunching it at her waist.
In her movements, her under pants had slipped off her one leg and remained
halfway down her other leg.
While his desperation often got the best of him, he wanted
her to feel safe with him. “Tell me to stop and I will.”
He tried not to let her slow response upset him.
Her petting moved to his chest. “I won’t tell you to stop.”
The heat of her sex drew him downward. He lowered his hips
and pressed his erection against the nest of short curls covering the opening.
His short thrust breached the wet slit and he pressed farther.
Eden let out a small, almost frightened sound. Her rubbing
at his sides pulled rather than tried pushing him away. He ground deeper,
feeling the tightness and heat of her core.
When he lifted, Eden’s sharp inhalation reminded him not to
rush, to have patience with her.
He thrust again, driving into her in one stoke. He bowed his
head and caught her mouth on the next plunge. At first, her tentative kisses
were short pecks mixed with gasps. Then her passion surfaced and she seemed to
hunger for his mouth.
Her sensual undulation lacked timidity. Instead of small
shifts relocating her limbs to new locations against him, she drew her legs
back and raked her boot heels against the back of his thighs. She clawed at his
back, digging her nails into him hard.
Wild and uninhibited, she voiced her needs. “Harder,” she
cried out.
Her sex constricted on his shaft. Friction from his rapid
thrusts sent heated threads of tension through him. His scrotum tightened. And
as his seed flowed, his excitement grew at the thought of seeing her belly
swollen with his next child.
Once he had spent himself into her, he pushed up. He hovered
over her, staring into her sated gaze. She had matured and her sexual innocence
was gone. This wasn’t the woman he had made love to years before.
How many men had she lain with?
The thought that other men had touched her angered him. The
way she first refused and then gave in was the act of a woman who knew how to
wield sex over a man as if she were a whore.
He stood up to distance himself from both Eden and the angst
of his upsetting, chaotic emotions.
“What’s wrong, Brant?” Eden sat up.
He pulled his britches up and fastened them as he stared at
her open legs, the smooth white of her thighs disappearing under the bunched-up
skirt. Her chest heaved with each breath, thrusting out her creamy breasts
capped by her softened nipples. She had all the power, and it frustrated him.
“Stay in this lodge if you know what’s good for you.” He
went to the opening.
“Where are you going?”
He flung the flap of the lodge door out of his way and
stepped outside.
“Brant?” Eden called him.
Slapping the weathered hide back in place over the doorway,
he cut Eden off.
His father, Blue Wolf, appeared out of the shadows,
surprising him. “We missed you on the buffalo hunt.”
“I had something to do.” Brant rubbed the new stubble on his
face.
“Getting your woman?”
“And my son.”
“Why is it you brought them here?”
“They belong to me,” Brant answered, insulted by his
father’s lack of compassion or at least understanding.
“Is that the only reason? You had a wolf pup once and when
he began to wander off to be with his own kind, you didn’t make him stay.”
“This is different.” Brant kicked the toe of his moccasin in
the dirt and confessed. “I have always needed Eden. These years without her
have been the most miserable ones I could have ever lived.”
“Have you told her that is why she is here?”
“It is of no importance to her. She left me once. I will not
allow her to do so again. It may be too late to have her affection but I can
have my son’s and she will stay because of him.”
“This could cause trouble with the settlers if they hear you
hold a white woman and her son captive in our village.”
“He is my son, a half-breed. No one cares about a half-breed.”
“Are you speaking about the boy or maybe you are feeling
sorry for yourself?”
Blue Wolf always seemed to know what was in Brant’s
thoughts. Brant wanted to argue that he was wrong, but the years without Eden’s
love had crushed his spirit. All he ever remembered was how the people at the
trading post treated him. None of it bothered him at the time, because of Eden.
Her loving kindness held magic, and once that was gone, he saw how ugly the
world was.
“I will not let him go,” Brant finally said, not answering
his father’s question. “If you want, I will leave with them.”
“A woman bears a child from our seed, but that child is a
part of her. Your son’s well-being will always come first with his mother and
if we hope to keep a woman content with her life, we do not come between them. I
would not take you away from your mother, any more than you could take your son
from his,” Blue Wolf said in a defeated tone.
Brant considered his father’s words of wisdom. They seemed
one-sided. What of a woman not taking a son from his father?
Eden woke from a frightful nightmare she couldn’t remember.
The rain beat against the buffalo hides stretched over poles to make up Brant’s
lodge roof. She wiped the tears from her face and sat up in the darkness. A sob
hiccupped out and she brushed away more tears.
She had her chemise back in place and loosely tied, but
keeping her blouse closed was impossible without the missing buttons. Brushing
back her hair, she looked at the door flap bouncing in the opening. The low
howl of wind worried her. She thought of Charlie.
Brant wouldn’t do anything to her just for checking on him,
she decided. She crawled toward the flap and glanced out. The rain made her
hesitant, the thunder and the flash of lightning pushed her back inside. She
reassured herself that Charlie was safe with his grandmother. She didn’t need
to check on him.
“It is tough to form a plan of escape in a storm.” Brant
startled her from his place in the shadows on the opposite side of the lodge.
“I wanted… I needed… I wasn’t thinking about leaving.” She
stumbled over the right thing to say. “I didn’t get a chance to tell Charlie
good night.”
“You have coddled him enough.” Brant struck a match and lit
a lantern. “I’ll not have a son raised as weak as a woman with her emotions.”
“Emotions don’t make a person weak, the lack of them does,”
she said, angered by Brant’s coldness. “My father was a harsh man and I’ve
worked hard to make sure Charlie is kind and thoughtful. If I had better sense,
I would have stayed in Boston with him.”
“Why did you not?”
“Someone sent a telegram telling me of my father’s death. I
thought I should return and get what I left at the ranch.” She moved back to
the bedding of furs.
“You were happy in that place you lived?”
The question surprised her. Brant hadn’t expressed much
curiosity in how she felt about anything since he came to claim his son. She
would have liked to say,
no, how could I be happy so far from the only man I’ve
ever loved?
“I like to think so,” she replied. “Charlie did well in
school. We both had friends.”
“The boy is intelligent?” He leaned forward slightly and the
glow from the lantern lit his eyes.
“Yes.” She saw him glance at the bedding.
“Yet, with all he knows of the city, his love is with Indians.”
She looked where Brant had and saw her under pants.
“Things he has learned from you?”
“From books. I rarely told him about my past.” She snatched
up the garment and wadded it in her hands.
Brant stiffened and she was sorry she hurt him by making him
think she never told Charlie about him.
Eden tucked the under pants beneath the corner of the fur
blanket. She crawled to the door flap again and looked outside to see the rain
had let up. “I can’t sleep. I’m going for a walk.”
She got to her feet as she stepped outside.
Brant followed her. “I will go with you.” He took hold of
her elbow.
“I want to go by myself.”
His grip tightened.
“You’ve no reason to fear I’ll escape.” She jerked her arm,
trying to free it. “Not as long as you keep my son captive.”
“He is not a prisoner.”
“He’s not allowed to leave.” She flashed a look at his
fingers still wrapped around her forearm.
Brant released her and she walked away. Making her way
through the village, she headed in the direction she knew the river flowed.
Along the bank, she found a grassy patch of ground. She sat
in the wet grass, not caring that it soaked her clothing. She pondered her
future in comparison to a past that haunted her. Aching inside, she hugged her
body and thought of the one occasion she and Brant made love before she had
gone to Boston.
“I will always take care of you,”
his words whispered
in her head. “
You mean everything to me, Eden.”
Every minute with him was meaningful. His care with her
feelings had touched her in ways she’d not known before or since.
“Tell me if I hurt you in any way. I want to know.”
She couldn’t begin to count the number of times he asked if
she was all right.
“Never hold back your feelings, my sweet Eden.”
Overly considerate, he exasperated her with his tenderness.
Squeezing her eyes shut as tight as possible, she brought back the memory of
that day and his voiced expressions of love.
“You are so pretty.” His wide smile displayed excitement
and his hands were eager extensions of his happiness.
As his touch glided over her body, removing her clothes,
he rubbed sensitive areas with his calloused fingers—ticklish spots that made
her laugh.
“You talk too much.” She twirled her fingers in his long
hair. “Show me how you feel.”
She squirmed against the length of him as he shifted to
remove more of her clothing. The contours of his lean frame mated to the
softness of hers. His warm lips pressed kisses to her cheeks and nose before
they met with her expelling breath. Kissing her as he had a million times, the
nakedness of their bodies became the catalyst to something much deeper.
“Remember, I want you to tell me…”
“Shush, now.” She rubbed his wet mouth. “Love me, Brant,
and you’ll know how very much I want this between us.”
“I love you more than all the stars in sky or grains of
sand on the ground. It will always be so, my Eden.”
The far-off sound of a coyote’s howl broke in on Eden’s
reflection on her past.
She glanced at the once dark sky brightening as the dense
clouds drifted apart, leaving wispy strands over the full moon. She sat for a
long time, letting the sound of moving water carry away her troubles.
Lying back on the cold, damp ground, she searched the
heavens for salvation. When greeted with a splash of shimmering stars peeking
between the clouds, her whole body calmed and the peaceful night led her back
to the moments in her past she held dear. She drifted off to sleep, remembering
Brant’s promise.
“It will always be so, my Eden.”
When Eden opened her eyes again, she sat up, disorientated
and panicked.
“You are safe.” A hand clamped over her arm and she glanced
at Brant sitting next to her.
What felt like a natural impulse to throw herself into his
arms vanished when his expression remained stern. She stared across the river
at the magnificent sunrise on the horizon. She loved it when she used to spend
the morning with him. It made her day at home better, if only in her mind. No
matter how many times her father whipped her with a willow branch when he
discovered she had gone off with Brant, she felt at peace with her decision.
She adjusted the leather shirt Brant had laid over her by
throwing it around her shoulders. He’d not accept it back if she offered and
she was chilly. “I’ve missed the way the sky can appear so big. In Boston, tall
buildings block a clear view until I walk to the harbor.”
“The harbor?”
“It’s where ships sail in from other parts of the world. You
must remember from the school books.” She shivered as her body responded to the
cool morning.
“I know what ships are.”
“The harbor is what they call the area where the ships
anchor or dock. You’d find it fascinating, I’m sure.”
Brant sat with his legs crossed and his hands resting on
them. His bronze skin glistened in the morning light. His muscles rolled
beneath the taut flesh whenever he made the slightest movement. She studied the
contours of his upper body, noting the addition of scars.
“You slept well out here?” he asked, taking her mind away
from questioning him about the old wounds.
“Yes.”
“It was not too cold for you?” He continued staring straight
ahead. “If I had known that you would stay all night I would have brought a blanket.”
“I wasn’t cold.” She pulled his shirt from where she draped
it on her shoulders and held it out to him. “My dress is made of wool and quite
warm.”
He grunted as a form of answering her and took the shirt. “To
sleep in the open too soundly is an invitation for the wild animals to attack.”
He sat the shirt on the ground and picked a blade of grass to put in his mouth.
“Then that would have been my misfortune. You didn’t need to
guard me.” She regretted the words immediately.
She didn’t know the first thing about seducing a man. He had
surprised and frightened her with his aggressive lust in the tent. But his
withdrawal and the remorse in his eyes had smoothed over her apprehensions.
Yet, his anger after she had given in to her own desires had confused her.
She didn’t know what she had done wrong, but she wanted to
make it right.
Leaning toward him, she nudged his arm and made the first
attempt at recapturing his love. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Not wanting to bring up whatever it was that happened in the
lodge after they had made love, she answered, “For coming out here and making
you watch over me all night.”
His accepting nod wasn’t enough of a response.
She pushed herself up slightly and kissed the corner of his
mouth. “Don’t be angry with me.”
His jaw clenched.
She took it as a sign that she was weakening his resolve to
keep mentally distanced from her.
“I’ll try not to worry you again.” Sweeping her lips to his
cheek, she positioned in front of him and nuzzled her nose alongside his.
“I was not worried.”
She placed her hands on his legs for support and elevated
high enough to kiss his brow, thankful he hadn’t pushed her away. “You wouldn’t
have said anything about the wild animals if you weren’t concerned.”
Lowering to sit on her heels, she rubbed her palms back and
forth over the smooth leather of his leggings.
He grasped her hands and pulled them away. “I did not want
to explain to my son how stupid his mother was.”
Eden’s eyes widened. She didn’t understand his determined indifference
to her. The drastic change in his mood from one moment to the next baffled her.
Then, when she thought she might as well give up, he pulled
her onto his lap and kissed her.
When his roaming caresses took hold of her chemise, she knew
she had to stop him from ruining the rest of her clothing.
“Let me,” she said, slipping off her blouse and untying the
laces on her chemise.
She got to her feet and unfastened her skirt.
He rose too. His intense gaze traveled over her. She
shivered as the cool air wafted over her heated skin. Nearly naked, the partly
open chemise was her only form of concealment. She waited for Brant to do or
say something.
He removed his moccasins, un-strapped the knife from his leg
and dropped his pants. She looked at him in all his glory striding toward her.
He didn’t waste time with talk or patience. Although, a
little of both would have eased her mind.
With the flick of his hand, he swept the chemise from one
shoulder and then the other. The white cotton fluttered down her arms and
dropped to the ground.
Brant circled her.
Once.
Twice.
And the third time he stopped behind her.
He rested his hands on her hips, and then his fingers slid
around to crisscross her belly. As his hands moved up, cupping and squeezing
her breasts, she leaned her head back against his firm chest.
Tingling sensations zipped through her limbs and landed
hotly in her loins at the same time he pushed his hand between her legs. He
kissed her shoulder and neck and rubbed her sex. The brisk passes pressed
deeper. One of his fingers hit a sensitive button of nerves and the prickling
sensation lifted her on her toes. The repetitive strokes threw her senses in a
tizzy and she thrashed against him. Her raging orgasm sucked the energy from
her limbs and her trembling legs weakened her stance.
Brant lowered her to her knees. He came down behind her.
With a hand to her back, he coaxed her to lean over, propped on her hands.
In the throes of her own rapture, she didn’t question the
position.
Brant let out a relieved grunt as he pushed into her sex. He
gripped her at the hip joints and pounded deep into her soaked center. Sore
from earlier, she tried not to make a sound that would stop him, but as he
rasped in and out, quicker, harder and longer than when he took her in the
lodge, a whimper escaped her.
He seemed not to notice.
The thick grass tickled her nipples as Brant rocked her back
and forth with the bump of his groin against her buttocks. She followed the
rhythm, pushing back when he drove forward. Her insides twitched fiercely. She
panted hard and clawed at the grass as the intense sensations escalated.
When she lost her balance and her elbows buckled, she fell
to the ground. Brant followed and continued rocking back and forth. Then Brant
jolted several times and let out a long, strangled groan. The liquid warmth of
his semen filled her, soothing her burning center.
Without allowing her a second to catch her breath, he rose,
scooped his arm under her and pulled her up. He grasped her face, turned it to
the side against his chest and kissed her with ferocious vigor. Out of breath
and out of strength, she leaned submissively with her back against his chest.
His ardent kissing of her face eventually ended. “You will
go back to the lodge now and rest.”
His tone just begged her to breathlessly ask, “Why?”
“I will have you many times today.”
Eden mustered up strength and pushed his arm away. She
crawled out of his reach. “Just like that, you think you will bed me on a
whim?” She grabbed her blouse and shoved her arms in the sleeves.
Brant bolted to his feet.
She stiffened her backbone, determined not to flinch. He
might let his anger flare in his tone, but he’d not hit her, she assured
herself.