Chieftain (Historical Romance) (17 page)

M
aggie laughed
and assured Shanaco that he was wrong. They would
not
behave foolishly again before the night was over.

But a couple of hours later she got back into the bed with him. During the time she’d been up she had allowed Pistol back inside to get warm. She had fed the hungry wolfhound, then fixed a meal of sorts for Shanaco and herself.

After the dishes were cleared away she had built up the fire, heated water atop the cookstove and announced that she was giving him a much-needed bath.

Shanaco didn’t argue. Nor did he object when she tossed the covers to the foot of the bed and went to work in a no-nonsense manner, nurse to patient.

Fully clothed, Maggie began to carefully bathe Shanaco’s lean body, taking care not to hurt him, frowning at the sight of the many bruises and abrasions marring his bronzed skin. Shanaco sighed and stretched and loved every minute of it. And inevitably, the bed bath became more of a sensual exercise in pleasure than a simple cleansing of the flesh.

Maggie gently stroked him with the damp cloth, running it lightly over his wide shoulders, the hard planes of his chest, and down his flat belly. She felt her face grow warm when she maneuvered the cloth down the insides of his thighs, the back of her hand brushing against his groin. Causing it to stir.

“There,” she
said at last, “all done.”

She dropped the cloth and hurriedly blotted the moisture from his body with a large, thirsty towel. Then she placed fresh bandages on the worst of his cuts and bruises.

“Think you can get up? Walk to the sofa if I help you?”

“I’ll try.”

Maggie helped him sit up and swing his long legs to the floor. She saw him grimace and wondered how on earth he had been able to make love to her. She shouldn’t have let him. She draped a blanket around his shoulders and assisted him as he slowly crossed to the horsehide sofa.

When she was sure he was comfortable, she stripped the soiled linens from the bed and put on clean sheets and pillowcases. She fluffed up the pillows and smoothed the blanket taut. Then helped Shanaco back to the nice clean bed and, over his protest, quickly turned away.

Maggie heated more water, brought in the wooden tub from outside the back door, set it before the fire and filled it. She again let Pistol out, locked the door and began stripping off her clothes.

Watching from the bed, Shanaco swallowed hard when, naked and beautiful, her glorious hair pinned up atop her head, she stepped into the tub. She took a long, leisurely bath that Shanaco enjoyed as much as she. Maggie hummed as she raised a wet washcloth to her throat and let it slide slowly down to her breasts. She knew Shanaco was watching, but she didn’t mind. It was thrilling to feel his eyes resting on her, examining her, admiring her.

The bath
finished, Maggie rose regally from the tub, her slender body gleaming wet. The flickering firelight licked at her pale thighs and high breasts and set her red hair ablaze. Diamond droplets of water clung to her pointed nipples and to the flaming curls of her groin.

Shanaco stared in awe, knowing instinctively that this vision of Maggie would be indelibly stamped on his brain for the rest of his life. Long after they had parted, he would remember exactly how she had looked on this cold snowy night.

He watched bewitched as she toweled herself dry, each move of her lithe body inherently provocative. He smiled as she slipped a long white nightgown over her head but did not fasten it up the front. The gown was undone to her waist. Finally she came to join him.

Maggie stood beside the bed and looked at Shanaco. He was propped against the pillows. The covers rested around his waist. His taut muscles gleamed in the shadowy firelight. His raven hair was tied back and his penetrating eyes smoldered with desire.

Just looking
at him made her long to be in his arms. But it would be, Maggie knew, totally irresponsible for the two of them to make love again. Once had been foolhardy enough. She had to remember that Shanaco had been badly hurt.
Was
badly hurt. He was suffering the lasting effects of a vicious beating. His handsome face and exquisite body were covered with wounds and bruises. She was supposed to be caring for him, not allowing him to further injure himself.

“Come to bed, sweetheart,” Shanaco said softly, his hand outstretched to her.

“I will,” she said, “but only if you understand that we can’t…”

The sentence was never finished. Shanaco reached out, caught hold her gown and reeled her closer. He released the gown, clasped her wrist and drew her hand up to his mouth.

He kissed the warm palm and said against it, “Maggie, if you’ll get into bed with me, I swear you won’t have to make love to me.”

Skeptical, Maggie sank down onto the edge of the mattress facing him. She laid a warm hand on his smooth chest.

“You mean it?” she asked. Shanaco smiled and nodded. “Very well,” she said. “We’ll just talk awhile then go to sleep. Lord knows we both could use the rest.”

Maggie rose to her feet, turned back the covers and got into bed. Her head had hardly touched the pillow before Shanaco’s lean fingers were stroking her throat and sliding beneath the gown’s fabric to caress a soft, warm breast.

“Shanaco,” she
said, beginning to scold him, but his mouth quickly claimed hers in a scorching kiss.

His lips taunted hers with kisses; gentle, teasing, then hotly demanding, his tongue ran along the inside of her bottom lip before plunging between her teeth to probe the sensitive insides of her mouth.

Maggie moaned and Shanaco’s lips finally lifted to hover just above hers.

“You swore,” she reminded him, already lost, wanting more of his kisses, more of him. “Remember?”

“I swore that you wouldn’t have to make love to me,” he said, his breath fanning her face. “And you won’t.
I
will make love to
you.
” He lifted a hand, plucked the pins from her hair and watched it spill onto the pillow. He reached across her, laid the pins on the bureau.

“But you’re not able to…to…aah,” she breathed as his lips touched her throat.

Shanaco whispered words of love in a mixture of English and Comanche as he nudged the open nightgown apart with his hot face and his mouth moved down to capture a stiffening nipple. He teased and toyed with the nipple, rolling it on his tongue, nipping gently with his teeth. He sucked at it until it was achingly erect, then moved to the other nipple.

Her back arching, her heart pounding, Maggie could feel her thighs eagerly opening to him as Shanaco deftly moved between her legs, eased the gown up out of his way and pressed a kiss to her navel. When he probed the small indentation with the tip of his tongue, Maggie anxiously lifted her arms up over her head and wrapped her hands around the rungs of the iron bedstead.

Shanaco’s tongue
sensuously circled her navel, then slipped lower to lick at the baby-fine line of pale red hair leading down her belly. Maggie knew instinctively what he was going to do to her.

She was shocked.

She was powerless to stop him.

She no longer belonged to herself, but to him. She existed only for passion; was but a burning vessel of desire.

Maggie’s fingers tightened on the iron rungs of the bedstead as Shanaco gripped her hips and his burning lips pressed soft kisses down her bare belly, moving steadily lower. Maggie moaned and her head tossed from side to side on the pillow when his mouth reached the springy coils between her thighs.

She gasped and her pelvis surged upward when his tongue parted the curls, then touched her where she burned the most. Maggie clung to the iron rungs and allowed Shanaco to lift her legs up over his shoulders. She grew dizzy and weak with pleasure as his mouth mastered her totally, his lips enclosing her, his tongue plunging, stroking, licking her with the heat of a thousand suns.

Wave after wave of unequaled pleasure washed over Maggie until she was sure she would literally burst into flame. The ecstasy built and built as his torturing tongue slipped lower still and she felt it go inside her. She gasped and arched and pushed herself up against that fiery tongue, knowing that a helpless scream was forming in the back of her throat.

But just
before the coming explosion, Shanaco abruptly took his mouth from her.

Maggie whimpered her protest and her hands left the rungs of the bedstead. Frantically she reached for him, tried to pull him back into place as his lips moved down the insides of her open thighs.

Then all at once he was above her, his handsome face inches from her own. She smelled herself on him, her scent mixing with his. He kissed her and she tasted herself on his mouth. But while he kissed her, Shanaco slowly—so that she would feel every hot inch of his throbbing erection—came into her, filling her, stretching her, conquering her.

His lips released hers. He raised his head. He stared down at her with those mesmerizing silver eyes. He began the slow, rhythmic thrusting, the surging of his lean hips. Maggie sighed with sexual joy and began to lift her pelvis to meet each dazzling thrust.

Her hands again moved up to grip the bedstead’s iron rungs, and she whispered his name over and over as smoothly, unhurriedly Shanaco took her closer and closer to total bliss. He carefully kept his own rising passion in check to prolong her pleasure.

Consumed with raging desire, Maggie selfishly forgot that Shanaco’s body was battered. Didn’t care that the handsome face above her own was bruised. She wasn’t worried that their actions might further injure him—nothing mattered except what he was doing to her at this moment in time.

She gloried
in the luscious loving, bucking eagerly against him, squeezing him possessively with her thighs, wanting to have him stay buried deep inside her for all eternity.

Perfectly gauging the level of her building excitement, Shanaco continued, for a time, to languidly love her, setting a slow, sensual pace, gliding in and then almost out, making her hotter and hotter.

Until her hands left the bedstead, clutched at his shoulders and she began to beg him.

“Shanaco, Shanaco,” she murmured, suddenly terrified that these wonderful sensations she was feeling would leave her. That
he
would leave her. That she would be left like this, suspended, yearning, hurting.

“I know, sweetheart,” Shanaco soothed, and speeded his movements, thrusting faster, plunging deeper, driving into her with the full force of his unleashed passion. He knew the exact second that her climax started.

“Oh, oh yes, yes,” she cried as the elation quickly spiraled out of control and she felt as if she could stand it no longer.

And then that wondrous explosion, that wrenching ecstasy, that total abandon. Her hands were back on the iron rungs and she held on for dear life. She screamed out as she was buffeted by a joy so intense it was almost painful. She looked at Shanaco’s face, hardened now with passion as his own release came. She could feel him throbbing powerfully inside her, knew that his ecstasy matched her own.

The wayward
thought came to her that his strong male body was like a fierce volcano, erupting now with pent-up heat, the hot lava of love shooting high up into her.

“Darling,” she sighed when at last the storm had passed and they were both limp with satisfaction, their bodies still joined, hearts beating as one.

“My love,” he murmured on an exhaling breath of contentment.

They lay as they were for a long, lovely time, holding each other, savoring the bliss, basking in the hazy afterglow and peace that comes from beautiful lovemaking. Maggie fondly stroked Shanaco’s deeply clefted back and pressed kisses to his bruised jaw. Shanaco buried his face in her wild red hair and inhaled its clean scent. For both it was the sweetest of restful interludes and each was reluctant to move and break the spell.

Still, as they clung to each other, a troubling thought went through Maggie’s mind. This serenity, this happiness was not to last. Just days from now Shanaco would be gone and they would never see each other again.

Shanaco slowly raised his head, looked at Maggie, and in his beautiful eyes she saw her own melancholy reflected there. She knew that he was thinking the same thing she was thinking.

He started
to speak.

She stopped him.

“No, Shanaco,” she whispered, “don’t say it.”

He nodded his understanding and replied, “Kiss me, sweetheart. Just kiss me.”

M
onday morning
at ten minutes of eight Maggie hurried toward the schoolhouse.

She was nervous. Shanaco had assured her there was nothing to worry about. She hoped he was right.

Maggie steeled herself to maintain her composure when, at straight up eight o’clock, she entered the classroom. The children were unusually noisy and nervous. All were up out of their seats, huddled about in clusters, talking excitedly.

Maggie knew that the subject of their conversations was Shanaco.

Word of his alleged crime had quickly spread and had become the main topic of gossip in every dwelling both on and off the reservation. Everyone, even the children, had heard about the shocking events. The grown boys, those who were fifteen and sixteen, talked knowingly among themselves, discussing the rape of the white woman and of Shanaco’s daring escape.

The girls, some red-faced, all shocked and disappointed by Chief Shanaco’s behavior, whispered and shook their heads sadly. The little ones, like Bright Feather, didn’t understand what Shanaco had done. Bright Feather knew only that the tall Comanche chieftain who paid attention to him, and whom he liked so much, had been punished for something bad that he had done. He knew as well that Shanaco had escaped and that the troopers were searching everywhere for him.

Maggie
raised her hands for silence. “Students, take your seats, please.”

It took a few moments for everyone to settle down and stop talking. When finally everyone was in their seats and looking at her, Maggie felt it necessary to address the issue. She glanced at Old Coyote and saw the worried look in his eyes. She could not tell him or indicate in any way that Shanaco was safe. She could not give him a reassuring look, lest one of the students read her meaning. Old Coyote would have to wait.

“I want to say a few words regarding Chief Shanaco,” she began in a soft but firm voice. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her chin lifted slightly. “Despite what you’ve been told, or may have heard, no one knows for certain what actually happened last Thursday night. As you know, Chief Shanaco is no longer here on the reservation. But let me remind you that his absence does not mean that he is guilty of anything.” She looked from face to face and concluded, “All I am saying is that you should not judge Shanaco without knowing all the facts. None of us should. If you admired him before, and I know that many of you did, I would not let this awful allegation change the way you feel about him.” She uncrossed her arms, smiled and said, “Let us now turn our attention to today’s lessons.”

For the next
four hours Maggie patiently taught her students. She listened as, one by one, they stood and struggled to read aloud in halting English. Then she nodded and praised them when—a half dozen at a time—they went to the blackboard, picked up new pieces of chalk and wrote the latest English words they had learned to spell.

Maggie conducted herself as she always did. She behaved as if what was taking place in this classroom was the only thing on her mind. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Try as she might to keep her mind on the reading and spelling, her thoughts kept returning to Shanaco.

More than once she felt a delicious shiver skip up her spine at the vivid recollection of their lovemaking. She counted the minutes until she could return to him. Time had never dragged so slowly before. Maggie kept glancing at the big clock mounted above the blackboard, wondering if noon was ever going to come.

At last it did.

The children jumped up out of the seats and rushed from the room. Maggie fought the impulse to beat them to the door. She didn’t move, but stayed right where she was, calmly waiting as the room emptied of all students save Old Coyote.

“He’s
safe,” she then said without preamble. “At my cottage.”

“He was badly hurt.”

“He was, but Shanaco is a young, vigorous man. He is already better. Much better. He’s going to be all right.”

“How he get to your house?” Coyote asked.

Maggie knew he was eager to hear everything, and would appreciate the story as much as Shanaco had, so she told him exactly what had happened. Old Coyote’s eyes twinkled and he smiled broadly and clapped his hands together as she related the snowy midnight rescue.

“Now,” she concluded, “tell me what you have heard. What are they saying? What’s going to happen?”

“Is said that Major Courteen back in hospital, very sick. Pneumonia. Hear nothing else. Nobody talking much, but mounted troopers have ridden all over reservation, stalking unannounced into every tepee and lodge. Tribes are infuriated.” His old eyes again lighting slightly, he added, “Some of the young angry braves get away, leave reservation, not come back ever.”

Maggie was not surprised, but she hated to hear it. Still, she fully understood their wrath.

“In a few days Shanaco must leave,” Maggie stated. “You and I, Old Coyote, will help him escape.”

“I do whatever you tell me.”

“I know
you will. Now, go and don’t worry. Soon Shanaco will be able to travel.”

“Where he go?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Have no idea. All I know is that he is innocent and you and I are not going to let him pay for something he did not do.”

“I tell no one where he is,” Coyote promised, then smiled and asked, “You take good care of Shanaco?”

“I will,” Maggie said, and hoped she wasn’t blushing guiltily.