The Darkest Heart (20 page)

She closed her eyes and recalled the magnificence of being possessed by this man. She had wanted him. She had wanted him with an uncontrollable passion. She had been mindless beneath his touch, his mouth. She had enjoyed every minute. No—that word could not possibly convey what she had been feeling. Ecstasy. Physical ecstasy.
What is happening to me?

She had enjoyed a man’s lovemaking, a man who was not her husband and who was half Indian. Oh, dear God. She clutched her hand to her mouth to prevent the choked sound from escaping.

You belong to me
.

Mine
.

Those words echoed in her mind. They brought a hot flush of shameful elation. She tried to refute the statement, thinking, I belong to no man—and certainly not to him. Then she would remember how he had fought Hayilkah and nearly killed him. She would remember how he had looked at her over Datiye’s head, his face wet with sweat and blood, his eyes hot and proud and vitally victorious. Then she would remember how he had pulled her down into the dirt, not caring who might see, and driven himself into her, claiming her, again and again. And she could still hear her own shameless cries of pleasure and surrender.

“Candice?”

His voice was questioning in her ear, his breath warm. His hand closed on her waist. She bit her lip, hesitating, then turned to meet his gaze.

What she didn’t expect was the soft look in his eyes, or the way his hand touched her face tenderly. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek more fully into his palm. She felt lus mouth brush her temple, and then he was standing.

She sat up, holding the torn front of her dress together, blushing. He was pulling up his pants and tying the drawstring.
She felt the shame again—rutting in the dirt like animals—and looked away. Her heart had picked up its beat. What should she do? How should she act? What in God’s name was going to happen next?

What was wrong with her?

“Let’s go back to camp,” he said without inflection, and when she glanced at him, the softness had gone from his eyes. She could not read his expression. His gaze flicked to her torn dress. “I’ll get you a needle and some sinew, thread if I can.”

She blushed more brightly.

He left her with Luz and the other women all day. Candice helped them to prepare foodstuffs, but with half her attention on what she was doing. She was utterly distracted. Every time she thought about the morning she grew hot with embarrassment and all kinds of jumbled emotions—including something no lady should be feeling—excitement. She knew only one thing to be true—she couldn’t wait to get back to civilization. Back home. And what would happen then?

If her reputation had been damaged before, this time …

She didn’t dare think about it.

That night they ate with Shozkay and Luz again. Candice found herself looking at Jack, looking and remembering. He didn’t return her gaze. It was almost as if he were avoiding the haphazard meeting of their eyes. But once, just once, he looked up and their glances caught, held, locked. The brightness in his eyes almost knocked her backward. She couldn’t think, just feel. And anticipate.

They walked back to their
gohwah
in silence. At the shelter he held the flap to let her precede him. She paused, her heart thudding wildly, her skin flushed and warm, and all she could think of—wish for—was that he was going to stay with her tonight—wasn’t he? She turned to him.

He met her gaze fully but didn’t speak. He held the flap open, waiting. She wet her lips nervously, ashamed, and knew she had hopelessly fallen into sin. “Will you come in?”

His jaw flexed. For one instant he didn’t move. “Do you understand what you’re asking?” His voice was husky, and it flooded her with liquid heat.

“Yes,” she breathed. She ducked in, he followed. She
hesitated, unbearably shy, but her chest was so tight with wanting him that she thought it might explode. He did mean what she thought he meant, didn’t he? Or should she take her clothes off?

Like some whore
.

She grimaced at the ugliness of that thought, and then he touched her.

Gentle fingertips on her shoulders, but it was enough. She spun around in his arms, he clutched her to him. She raised her face, he lowered his. In perfect tandem their lips met, a soft searching before the storm and the thunder.

His lips grew more demanding, he stroked hard hands down her back and buttocks. She pressed herself fully into the large bone of his erection, and moaned into his mouth. He suddenly drew away from her to press his face in the crook of her neck, his breath warm, so warm. “Candice,” he breathed.

“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, finding his hair and threading it through her fingers.

“Shijii
, darling …” He broke off, a choked sound, and lifted her, laying her on the hides. He knelt on the floor above her, she opened her arms wide. The look of anguished pleasure that swept his face made her want to enfold him to her breast all the more. “Come to me,” she whispered.

He groaned and stripped off his clothes rapidly, clumsily, tripping over one pant leg. Then he was kneeling over her, pulling her into his arms. “This time,
shijii
, this time,” he promised huskily, raining kisses on her mouth and throat, “this time I’ll make it so good …”

Just having him in her arms, kissing her desperately, his large, swollen member throbbing against her belly, was making her mind reel and her body throb at a precarious pitch. With his tongue thrusting in her mouth he reached down to slide his forefinger between the swollen lips of her groin, and she gasped, arching. “Jack.”

“Yes,” he said. “I want to watch you, darling, I want to watch you come.” Raising himself on his hands, he began rubbing the head of his penis against her, moving it slickly back and forth as her moans grew. She twisted wildly, beyond control and caring. Panting.

“Jack.”

“Come, baby, come for me.” And he thrust into her, and she came violently, crying aloud.

When she opened her eyes he was lying in her, watching her face with burning eyes, still hard and vitally alive inside her. He took a hank of her hair in one hand with brute strength, and with his other he captured both her wrists—kissing her deeply, fully. His legs pinned hers and she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Hot sparks flared.

She began moving her hips against his, lazily, but with growing urgency. He withdrew. “Jack.”

He didn’t answer. Still holding her wrists, he forced her thighs farther apart with his powerful legs, keeping her immobile. He was ducking his head to her groin and spreading her flesh, flicking his tongue over it. “Do you like this?”

It took her a moment to realize he had stopped and was waiting for her answer. “Yes.”

“And this?” His tongue traced a delicate route around her swollen clitoris.

She gasped, twitching but unable to move.

He raised his head. “Well?”

“Yes … please …”

“What about this?” He licked her, long and slowly.

“God,” she screamed, sobbing, exploding. She felt him thrusting into her again and again and again.…

Where is he? Candice wondered lazily, still half asleep. She sighed and snuggled deeper beneath the heavy Navajo blanket, and all recollection of last night came flooding back to her. She had no choice but to flush furiously.

Jack had made love to her again and again, until they had both fallen into a deep, sated sleep, Candice curled up against his side with her face on his broad, warm chest. Sometime last night, too, she had woken up to find him throbbing against her leg, his hands moving slowly over her breasts, brushing erect nipples. They had made love again, a slow, sensual, dreamlike mating. She smiled with the remembrance.

And then her smile abruptly disappeared. She sat upright. Last night Shozkay would have made a decision regarding Hayilkah’s accusation that Jack had cheated him—that he wanted her back. A terrible anxiety rose up in her. She didn’t think Jack would listen if Shozkay decided she should be returned—or would he? She really didn’t know him. He was so different, so Apache, and she didn’t know or understand their ways. Candice got up and pulled on her dress, running her fingers through her tangled hair. She ducked outside.

There was the usual activity in camp. She looked for Jack but there was no sign of him. She started across the camp to
the gohwah
Luz and Shozkay shared. The woman was kneeling over a hide, scraping hairs. She looked up and smiled.

Candice’s anxiety must have showed, because Luz said, “He is down by the creek.”

Her heart did a funny little flutter. “Thank you,” Candice said, and she was off, racing down one of the patte to the stream. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing by a boulder at the water’s edge, talking with Shozkay. He was wearing only a loincloth and his knife, and was barefoot like she was. The sun, streaking through the branches overhead, glinted on the delicate veins of gold in his dark hair. His profile was breathtaking and perfect. She had to admire the broad width of his shoulders and the packed muscle of his chest. He turned and saw her and stopped in midconversation, staring.

Candice couldn’t look away—but she did blush. The look he was giving her was
that
kind of look.

Shozkay laughed, patted Jack on the arm, and started toward her. Candice managed to tear her gaze from Jack to smile politely at his brother. “Good morning.”

Shozkay gave her a warm smile. “Good morning,
niña.”
He passed her and trudged back to the camp.

Candice remembered the reason she had been looking for him—or one of them. She started forward at a run. A smile lifted the corners of Jack’s mouth, and she abruptly saw where he was looking—at her breasts bouncing, the nipples hard. She slowed to a walk, giving him a look. “You are no gentleman.”

He grinned then, a dazzling expression. “True.”

She bit her lip, suddenly shy.

His smile faded and he gazed at her soberly for a long, searching moment. “Good morning,
shijii.”

Shijii
, she had learned last night, meant
darling
, although literally it meant
my heart
. The endearment elated her. “Good morning.”

He smiled again, this time softly. “Miss me?” He couldn’t disguise the hopeful expression.

She had. She was struck with the knowledge, but afraid to admit it. So she found a new topic. “What are you doing?”

“I came to bathe.”

They looked at each other again. “What is it, Candice?”

“About Hayilkah …” She trailed off. She wanted to touch him, to be touched. But in broad daylight the intimacy of last night seemed like a dream—except that they both knew it was real. She shifted.

“Hayilkah is very sick,” Jack said. “Shozkay has decided I have to bring him, or his family, a mare in foal to the black.”

“That means you don’t have to give me back to him?”

“That’s right.”

She felt relief, and it showed.

He lifted her chin.
“Shijii
, did you really think I’d give you to him? Let him touch you again?”

“I … I wasn’t sure.”

That bothered him, and his jaw tightened. Candice saw it and was sorry, but new worries were crowding the old. Were they now free to leave?

She pictured the High C and her family, and she felt a deep sense of dread. This was what she didn’t want to think about—her future. Returning. The condemnation, the scandal. And what about Jack?

“Candice, would you run and get me soap? It’s in my saddlebags.”

“Of course,” she said, knowing at this moment she would do just about anything for him. And she was glad of something to do other than think. “I’ll be right back.”

Five minutes later she returned with the soap and a clean blanket. He was standing in the creek, naked, and she openly admired him, not without being affected by the sight. She was now very much aware of the rise of desire—and what it promised. He turned, and his eyes twinkled. “You make noise like a cow, a drunken cow, moving through the chaparral.”

Her eyes widened—he was teasing her! “Mooo!”

He chuckled. “You’re also as fast as a tortoise.”

“But as soft as a kitten,” she purred.

He laughed. “With claws, I know.”

She blushed at the reference to her wild passion.

“Give me the soap.”

“Step closer to the bank.”

“Throw it.”

“No.”

“No?” His tone was exaggerated.

“If you want it, you’ll have to come here and get it.”

He grinned. “You are asking for big trouble,
ish’tia’nay.”

“Very big trouble,” she said pointedly, looking at his swelling groin.

He gave her a look.

She giggled.

He charged.

She ran.

He caught her easily and swept her up into his arms. She shrieked playfully and pretended to fight. “Someone else I know needs a bath,” he declared.

“No,” she cried in mock fear. “The water is cold!”

He waded in and held her a few feet above it.

“Let me down, Jack,” she demanded.

“Okay,” he said, laughter in his voice.

She tensed, waiting to be heaved.

He released her legs so that her body swung down against his, still suspended, and he began to lower her very slowly, looking into her eyes. Playfulness vanished. Her eyes widened and she slid down his body, the dress riding up. His hands were on her buttocks.

“Put your legs around my waist,” he said.

She obeyed and he set her on his straining manhood. She gasped. He laughed. A hoarse, sensuous sound. He had nothing to lean her against, and their position was awkward without support. “Now what?” she breathed shakily.

“I’m going to come inside you,” he said.

She gasped and he captured her mouth, dropping slowly to his knees and setting her on her back in the shallow water without ever withdrawing. They began moving together, slowly and rhythmically, reaching a hot climax simultaneously.

“You’re insatiable,” Candice said, smiling, brushing her hair off his cheekbone.

His gray eyes, sated now and solemn, moved over her face as she continued to toy with the strands. “You make me that way.”