Night Sun slowly turned his head and saw a teary-eyed Martay beside him.
“I love you,” she said, her tears overflowing when she saw the ones shining in his black eyes. “Don’t send me back. I want to stay with you.”
Her sweet, childlike admission was all it took. With a great groan of despair, resignation, and incredible happiness, Night Sun pulled the woman he loved into his arms and, unashamed of the hot tears spilling down his face, he murmured, choking with emotion, “From the first minute you looked up into my eyes on that moonlit veranda, I’ve known I would never let you go.”
36
H
er face buried in his warm, brown throat, Martay sobbed, “I thought you didn’t want me and I …”
“Ah,
Wicincala,”
Night Sun managed hoarsely, eyes squeezed shut, arms pressing her tightly to his fiercely pounding heart. Loving her so much he had to control himself lest he crush the very life from her, he said, “I want you, Martay. I apologize for all I’ve done to you. I love you,
Wicincala,
I love you. Can you ever forgive me?” He pulled back a little to look at her.
“Y-yes … oh, yes,” she cried. “Yes, Night Sun.” Tears washed down her lovely face, but she was smiling and her eyes, those expressive emerald eyes that so intoxicated him, were shining with unveiled adoration and relief.
He smiled too, blinking back his tears and saying, “Don’t cry, sweetheart. It’s all going to be all right. Please don’t cry.”
“I … I’m … not … crying.… I …” Gulping for air, she laughed nervously, still continuing to cry.
“Hoksi cala,
” said Night Sun, his voice breaking, and cradling her head to his shoulder, he laughed too. For a time they sat there, laughing and crying all at once, happiness and relief filling them with a new kind of joy neither was yet certain could last. They laughed and laughed, murmuring apologies, promising love, accepting forgiveness, and when finally their uneasy laughter subsided and Night Sun again pulled back to look at Martay, he shuddered and his hands trembled as he lifted them to frame her face.
All traces of laughter gone from his voice, he said, “I love you more than my life, Martay. I cannot live if you leave me.”
“I’ll never leave you,” she murmured, her hands frantically gripping his trim, bare waist. “Never.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he whispered softly as he lowered his mouth to hers. He tasted the salty tears on her full, parted lips and moaned. Gently, lovingly, he kissed them away and silently vowed he would never again make her cry. “I love you,” he said, pressing warm, sweet kisses to her wet, quivering lips, “I love you. If you love me, nothing else matters. Nothing.”
“I do,” she said happily, eagerly, “I do. I love you. And you really do love me, don’t you?”
His black shining eyes held hers. “I worship you, Martay.”
Their lips came back together in a gentle, lingering kiss. “I love you,” she breathed into his mouth. “I love you. I love you.”
Night Sun smiled and allowed her lips to play with his. She anxiously kissed him over and over again, pressing her fingers to his brown cheeks, turning her head first this way then that. Kissing at the corners of his mouth, licking and nipping a path along his full bottom lip, sucking at its wet inside, and all the while she was saying, as though the words were magical, as indeed they were, “You love me. You love me.”
His breath growing short, Night Sun, letting his hands move down her arms to her narrow waist, felt his passion quickly rising and fought valiantly against it. He didn’t want this beautiful woman in his arms to think that he only desired her; he didn’t, he loved her with all his heart and wanted her to know it. But her honeyed lips were driving him half crazy and her bare breasts kept brushing tantalizingly against his chest.
Night Sun let out a small sigh of relief when at last Martay’s lips left his. But his breath grew short when, placing a small warm hand atop his collarbone, Martay let her middle finger slowly glide down his long, white scar, murmuring, “Who hurt you? Was it … it was my father.” She lifted knowing eyes to his.
Night Sun shook his dark head. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”
“Oh, my love,” she said, instinctively knowing it was her father’s flashing saber that had left the scar, and before Night Sun could stop her, she leaned to him and pressed her lips to the scar’s beginning point. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “sorry, sorry.”
“Don’t,” he said, “it’s all right,” and touching her back, urged her to raise her head.
She didn’t.
Against his warm, smooth skin, she said, “Let me kiss it. Let me heal it, Night Sun. Let me.” His breath stopped completely as she opened her mouth and began kissing the scar’s long bias path from left shoulder down across his rising, falling chest to his right hipbone.
His black eyes tortured, Night Sun looked down on the golden head bent to him and was helpless against what was happening to his body. Martay’s soft, warm lips on him, her tongue wetly tracing the scar, brought on an immediate, achingly complete arousal, and he was as powerless against her as if he were an unarmed warrior pitted against his fiercest well-armed foe.
For the first time such a thought brought a small smile of pleasure to his lips. He no longer had to fight her. The battle was over. Both had won. This beautiful golden-haired girl, bent to him, lovingly kissing his belly, was no longer his enemy. She was his love. His love. His woman. Soon, his wife. And she loved him just as he loved her.
Martay’s mouth had reached the scar’s end. With her tongue she circled Night Sun’s rising hipbone, her unbound golden hair falling around her face, pleasantly tickling his chest, his belly, his thigh.
Martay lifted her head a little.
She turned her face toward that throbbing, thrusting masculinity rising on his bare belly, and Night Sun, his face flushed and hot, said in a low, strangled voice. “Forgive me.”
“For what?” she asked, her curious, caressing eyes never leaving that impressive symbol of male power and potency. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “all of you is beautiful,” and in a quick, impulsive act that caused Night Sun to shudder violently, she lowered her head and swept the curtain of her long golden hair directly over him.
“Martay,” Night Sun groaned. Her thick covering hair tickled and tormented; his pulsing erection jerked and surged beneath the silky, covering tresses. “Ah, baby, baby …”
His voice was so strained, Martay became alarmed and promptly swept the tumbled, teasing locks from him. Pushing the offending hair over her shoulder and behind her ear, she whispered, “Yes, darling,” and bending to him, pressed warm, loving lips to the jerking, engorged tip. When she touched her tongue to him, Night Sun, his belly contracting painfully, reached for her, jerked her up into his arms, and kissed her hotly.
When their lips separated, he said against her cheek, “I believe there are a few things I’ll need to teach you about a man’s body, my love.”
“Mmmmm,” she sighed happily. “Will you teach me about my body as well?”
“It will be my fondest pleasure, sweetheart.”
“I’m glad,” she said, “will you begin now?” Then, taking one of his hands, she unselfconsciously drew it down between her legs. Night Sun touched her and found her already hot and wet. “There. You see,” she said, “what does it mean?”
His lean fingers began gently caressing her as he smiled and said, “It means, precious darling, that your husband is going to be one lucky man.”
Her face clouded a little. “Night Sun, you are going to be my husband, aren’t you?”
He continued to stroke her, his fingers gliding smoothly over satin, throbbing flesh. “Yes,
Wicincala.
Certainly.” He brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Do you suppose I’d ever let another man touch you?” he said, his black eyes taking on that intensity that had always thrilled and fascinated her. His words were as arousing as his expertly stimulating fingers when he added, his voice deep and assured, “No other’s hand will know you like this, no mouth but mine will taste the sweetness of your kisses.” He shifted, agilely moving so that she lay upon her back, he over her. His hand finally forsaking her, he moved between her widely parted thighs. Poised just above, the tip of his hard, heavy masculinity pressing her moist, burning flesh, he said, “Mine will be the only body to give and take pleasure from yours.”
On fire, in love, Martay said breathlessly, “Give pleasure to me now, Night Sun.”
Night Sun leaned down and enclosed a hard, darkened nipple in his mouth and sucked gently for an instant. Rising once more, looming over her, his weight supported on stiff arms, he said, “I love you, Martay. I belong to you.” He smiled then, a slow, sexual smile that burned right through her, and added, “If you want me, take me.”
“Yes, I will,” she breathed, and without hesitation reached for him. Wrapping her fingers eagerly around the hard, hot thickness, she guided him easily into her waiting warmth, and all the while their heated gazes were locked; loving emerald eyes snared by intense black ones.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten moment between them, and the knowledge, shared for the first time, that they were in love with each other, that nothing else mattered, that the world around them could not intrude, added a sharp, glorious, abandoned edge to the mating.
No sooner had Martay’s loving hand released him to her receptive body than she began to feel the onset of total ecstasy. Her eyes still trapped by his, she said truthfully, without a trace of shame or embarrassment, “You are right, my love, I’ve much to learn about our bodies. Already it is starting for me and I don’t think I can stop it.”
Feeling as though he himself would explode at any second, Night Sun immediately began the rolling, rapid movements of his slim hips, driving into her with a force she craved. “Don’t try to stop it, sweetheart. Let it come. I’ll take care of you. Just keep looking straight into my eyes.” He thrust hard, almost withdrew, then thrust deeply again. “Look at me while you climax, Martay.”
“Oh, God,” she moaned, feeling herself slipping close to the edge, her fingers grasping at his flexing biceps, fingernails digging into the smooth bronzed skin. “My God …” She surged up against him, moving with him, riding toward that rapturous crest and, still looking into his eyes, she sighed, “You are a god to me, Night Sun. A beautiful god.” Her building climax was lifting her, driving her, loosening her tongue. “Come with me. Come in me. I want to feel you come in me. My darling. My god.”
“Don’t speak like that,” Night Sun said. “I’m no god. I’m very human and … and … ahhhhh,” he groaned, unable to hold back his release any longer. Hotly he poured into Martay while she murmured breathlessly, “Oh yes, yes, I feel it … yes,” and looked unwaveringly into his jet-black eyes.
When it was over and both had regained their breath and their racing heartbeats had slowed, Night Sun dropped a kiss to her shoulder and said, “I don’t think gods behave like that.”
Inhaling deeply of his clean, masculine scent, Martay said, “Pity the poor gods then.” She kissed his ear. “And thank heaven we are only mere mortals.”
Night Sun laughed.
Rolling over, bringing her with him, he laughed. The laughter rumbled through his chest and filled the woman who loved him with peace and happiness. Rarely had she heard him laugh; never had he laughed with her. The sound of his deep, merry laughter brought almost as much bliss as his expert lovemaking.
For the next couple of happy, carefree hours, the naked pair laughed and teased each other. They kissed and caressed and spoke nothing but lovers’ foolish nonsense, exploring and enjoying their brand-new relationship. Not thinking past the moment, basking in the warm, encompassing sunshine of new and enduring love, they touched and sighed and yawned and stretched.
And laughed.
Finally, lying cozily, safely, in each other’s arms after another impulsive, white-hot surge of passion had caused them to mate wildly, anxiously, then left them spent, the star-crossed pair, reluctant to release their fragile hold on elusive happiness, knew it was time to discuss their uncertain future.
“I won’t,” said Night Sun softly, stroking Martay’s tumbled golden hair, “send you back. I’ll go in myself. Tell them I have you and …”
“No!” Martay, protesting immediately, raised her head from his chest to look at him. “No, Night Sun. The Army will kill you.” She paused, closed her eyes miserably, then opened them. “He’ll kill you. I know my father.” She pressed her cheek to his chest, again closing her eyes. “Let’s not go back. Let’s stay here and …”
“And spend the rest of my days looking over my shoulder? No,
Wicincala.
I’m going in and settle this.”
Hot tears immediately sprang to Martay’s eyes. Hugging him tightly, she said, “You can’t go. I won’t let you.”
“I must go, Martay.”
Her head shot up and she looked pleadingly into his dark eyes. “We’ve only just found each other. Is one night all we’re to know of happiness?”
He smiled at her. “No, baby. We’ll have lots of nights. And days and years.”
“I’m scared,” she said. “Don’t leave me, please don’t.”
“I am going,” he said, and Martay knew that nothing she could do or say would change the mind of this proud, stubborn Lakota she so loved. Still, she felt compelled to try.
She said, “Night Sun, there are two things in life my father cares about. One is the Army. The other is me.”
“I’m sure that’s …”
“Let me finish. When he learns it’s you who captured me, do you really suppose he will let you live, much less marry me?”
Night Sun’s eyes clouded slightly. “I hope so. If I can allow him to live after what he did … it won’t be easy. For him or for me. But I love you and he loves you, so …” He shrugged bare shoulders.
Martay shook her head. “He’ll never accept it, never. I love you so much, I am willing to go for the rest of my life without seeing my own father. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means everything.”
“Then why must you go back?”
“Martay, although it would be hard to make you believe it, I’ve always prided myself on being a man of some honor.” She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he silenced her with a forefinger to her lips. “I’ve been less than honorable in what I’ve done to you, and I’m not proud of it. I would like to make it right.”