Wild Thunder Read online

  Chapter 15

  The love that is purest and sweetest

  Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

  —JOHN O’REILLY

  Undressed and already in bed, Hannah lay nestled beneath a luxurious rabbit fur blanket that had been woven from long strips of cottontail pelts. As she watched Strong Wolf undress, she became breathless remembering a moment ago how his fingers had so gently disrobed her. She had felt awkward when he had gazed at her body as he had tossed each garment aside. She had always thought that she was too thin and gangly ever to please a man.

  But after she was fully undressed today, and Strong Wolf moved his fingers over her flesh for the first time, she had felt as though she were floating, the experience was so pleasant.

  She had learned quickly how wonderful it was to share such moments with the man she loved. She had gradually relaxed and had allowed herself to enjoy how it felt to be touched and caressed.

  Now she was waiting to be able to touch and caress Strong Wolf’s body. Although not practiced at such things, she knew her love for him as well as her instincts would guide her.

  When his manhood sprang into view as he slipped his buckskin breeches down his muscled legs, Hannah sucked in a wild breath of wonder.

  He was so huge there.

  So long.

  So thick.

  So well proportioned!

  Surely he knew well the art of pleasuring.

  But she feared the pain that might come with being with him sexually for the first time, especially now that she saw how he would so magnificently fill her.

  Shame came to her in splashes, to realize where her mind had taken her. It was hard to believe that she had even initiated what was transpiring. She was aching beneath the soft tendrils of down at the juncture of her thighs. When Strong Wolf had only briefly caressed her there, she had felt as though she might explode with feelings!

  Her heart pounded as Strong Wolf stood so beautifully nude before her, his one hand gently moving on his manhood as he came and knelt over her on the bed.

  With his free hand he unfolded the rabbit blanket from around her, revealing her full, silken nudity to him.

  “My woman, place your hands on me as I take mine away,” Strong Wolf said huskily, gasping with pleasure as Hannah reached up and gently placed her eager, trembling fingers around him, feeling the heat of his flesh against hers.

  “Now stroke me,” he encouraged, his eyes two points of fire as he gazed down at her.

  As though hypnotized beneath his passion-filled eyes, Hannah moved her fingers on him. When he closed his eyes and gasped and moaned with pleasure, she was aware of how this even enhanced her own rapture. She was swirling in a storm of passion that shook her innermost senses.

  “Enough,” Strong Wolf said, reaching for her hand, gently laying it at her side.

  He moved his fingers on himself again for a moment, then placed those fingers to her lips, just beneath her nose. “Smell and taste me.”

  Smiling seductively up at him, feeling devilishly feminine, Hannah flicked her tongue out and licked his forefinger.

  When he placed his finger into her mouth, she sucked on it, closing her eyes in rapture as he placed the heat of his manhood where she throbbed between her thighs.

  He did not try to enter her.

  He just moved himself in circles on her womanhood, causing her to become crazed with needful pleasure.

  He took his finger away from her mouth, then sealed her lips with a frenzied kiss as his hands molded her breasts within them. She drew a ragged breath when he kneaded her breasts, having never felt anything as delicious.

  Strong Wolf felt the heat rising inside his loins as he rolled her breasts against the palms of his hands. As her nipples hardened against his flesh, he circled his thumbs around each of them, then softly pinched them.

  Hannah moaned when Strong Wolf’s mouth went to a breast and moved over a nipple, his teeth gently nipping. She whimpered tiny cries when his hands moved down her body and he stroked her where the heat of his manhood still lay in waiting. Hannah opened her legs more to the pleasure.

  Her head tossed from side to side as his fingers caressed more earnestly against that piece or her flesh that she had been unaware of until today. The more he caressed her, the more her insides grew mushy with pleasure.

  Then suddenly she felt his hand leave her. Quickly he plunged his heat into her pulsing cleft. The pain of his entrance was excruciating. Hannah cried out, her wide eyes gazed into his as he watched her reaction to this first time of having been entered by a man.

  “Relax,” he whispered, brushing a comforting kiss across her lips. “Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Let the joy take the place of the pain.”

  Breathing hard, not wanting to be disappointed, the pain having drawn her into realities that troubled her, Hannah nodded and closed her eyes. She was thinking about how shameful and whorish she was behaving.

  Hadn’t Chuck told her that she was inexperienced with men?

  Was this what he meant?

  That she was so inexperienced that she would go too easily to bed with the man she loved?

  Tears splashed from her eyes as she tried to make some sense of what she was doing here, in such loose behavior.

  Yet as she lay there thinking, feeling remorse, things slowly began to change back to something wonderful.

  As Strong Wolf kissed her so sweetly, his hands holding her close while his thrusts came slowly and gently inside her, she felt the same old thrill that she had felt when only gazing upon Strong Wolf.

  “Is it better now?” Strong Wolf whispered into her ear as he gently brushed her hair back from her face. He flicked his tongue into her ear, causing Hannah to shiver sensually.

  “Yes, so much,” she whispered back, her voice quivered in her building excitement.

  He showered her face with soft kisses as he placed a hand to one of her thighs and urged her leg around his waist, and then her other one.

  Her soft thighs opened wide now, Strong Wolf moved even more deeply inside her, her moist inner flesh clasping him in a warm, clinging embrace.

  Her hips moved and rocked.

  She pressed her pelvis against him.

  Strong Wolf kissed Hannah long and deep, his tongue flicking between her lips. His pleasure was mounting. He moaned throatily as he kissed her more hungrily, his hands beneath her, lifting her closer.

  He could feel the excitement rising.

  His thrusts came to her in a wild, dizzying rhythm.

  He gripped her shoulders and as he made one last, deep plunge, her body spasmed against his in her own climax.

  Then their bodies became still. Strong Wolf held her tightly against him. His tongue parted her lips. Her tongue flicked out and touched his.

  His hand moved downward, following the curve of her hips, her buttocks, and then around to touch that very core of her heat.

  He was still inside her, pulsing.

  He withdrew, stroked himself until life came to him again, then he filled her again and began his rhythmic strokes as he kissed her passionately.

  They found their pleasure a second time, then Strong Wolf rolled away from Hannah, breathing hard, his heart lost to her forever.

  Nestled into his bed of sweet-scented grass, Strong Wolf pillowed Hannah’s head against his chest as she lay on her side beside him.

  “You are so quiet,” Strong Wolf said, placing a finger beneath her chin, directing her eyes into his. “Do you wish not to be here? I know that you enjoyed our lovemaking, so it is not that you wish to run away from. What is it? Why do you not smile?”

  Hannah gazed up at him, then smiled. “I am so amazed at what we have found together,” she murmured. “I am with you with such ease in this way. I find it hard to believe that I am, and that I have enjoyed it so much. I love you so much. Surely that is why it came so easy for me today.” She laughed softly. “I came to see your horses, not to initiate lovemaking with you.”

  “In your h
eart, you know that we should have made love even before today,” Strong Wolf said, again stroking the tender flesh of her womanhood. “Even now, as I touch you, do you wish ever to leave me?”

  “No,” Hannah choked out, the pleasure spreading inside her again. She held her head back and sighed.

  He leaned over and kissed the hollow of her throat, then covered a breast with his lips and flickea his tongue around the nipple.

  “Surely we can’t do it again, so soon,” Hannah managed to say in a choked sort of whisper.

  He turned her so that her back was to him. He drew her up close behind him as one hand reached around and cupped a breast, while the other hand caressed her where she was alive again with need of him.

  “We will make love a different way,” Strong Wolf whispered huskily against her ear, bringing her slowly to her knees in front of him.

  Hannah felt the heat of his manhood probing from behind at the heart of her desire. She leaned her hips back and slowly lifted a leg, then sighed with pleasure when she felt him enter her again with his wild, rhythmic thrusts.

  As he thrust inside her, his fingers stroking her swollen nub, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be carried away again on clouds of rapture.

  Strong Wolf closed his eyes. He took his time, savoring each moment that he was inside her, her flesh so warm against his, so tight, so wet. He could feel his manhood being sucked farther inside her as Hannah squeezed with pleasure.

  “Lord,” she cried, feeling the sweet rapture of their togetherness again. “How can it be? It is so wonderful, Strong Wolf. Pleasure me! Pleasure me! I can’t get enough!”

  He leaned over far enough to kiss her as she turned her head to one side to receive his lips against hers.

  They kissed wildly.

  They floated.

  They soared.

  They again found the bliss of sharing.

  Afterward, when they were dressed and sitting beside the fire, they shared a meal that a Potawatomis woman had brought to them at his bidding. They feasted on a meal of cooked turnips and milkweed buds.

  Hannah marveled over him having coffee to serve her.

  When their meal was finished, Strong Wolf added dry willow twigs to the fire. The fire was already fueled by brambles, huge logs, and small ears of green corn.

  Soon bright flames shot up and filled the room with a pleasant golden glow, the smoke lifting up through the chimney and wafting into the early afternoon air.

  “I enjoyed the milkweed buds,” Hannah said, then took a sip of coffee as she crossed her legs at her ankles, the rabbit fur robe spread beneath her on the floor soft and comforting. “I never imagined they could be eaten, much less be so tasty.”

  Dressed in his full buckskins, his long black hair drawn back from his eyes with a leather band, Strong Wolf scooted closer to Hannah. He took her half-emptied cup from her and set it aside, then snuggled her closer as they stared into the fire.

  “In the spring, the Potawatomis women are eager for greens,” he softly explained. “The early sprouting green plants are added to the soup kettle. They use fiddleheads, marsh marigold leaves, fresh milkweed shoots, and sprouts of bracken fern in their cooking. Also roots of lilies, jack-in-the-pulpit, cow parsnips, and American lotus.”

  “I never knew there could be so many that could be eaten,” Hannah said, gazing up at him.

  “Often the plants we eat are not only for the pleasure of eating, but also eaten to heal,” he said, then realized that Hannah tensed when her pinto whinnied outside.

  “I must really go,” she said, searching his face with her eyes, adoring him.

  “Stay,” he said thickly, placing a gentle hand to her cheek as she withdrew away from him.

  “I can’t,” she murmured. “My brother. You know that he needs me.”

  “I need you,” Strong Wolf said, then shook his head, as though to clarify what he had just said. “But I will not be selfish. I understand your brother’s needs.”

  He placed his hands to her upper arms and drew her close so that their lips were only a breath away. “But I understand my need of you, and I am not certain how long I can go now without having you again,” he said huskily, his eyes dark with passion. “You must find a way to be with me. And not only for an afternoon. For always.”

  He twined his fingers through her hair and yanked her lips against his. He gave her a fiery kiss, his free hand reaching inside her half-buttoned blouse to stroke a breast.

  Breathless, shaken by the intensity of their feelings for one another, Hannah wrenched herself free. “I don’t know how I can work things out,” she murmured. “If at all.”

  She rose to her feet and went to the door.

  He followed her, took her by the wrists, and swung her around to face him again. “You must find a way,” he said, his eyes imploring her.

  She sighed, then she flung herself into his arms. “Please understand,” she cried. “Please don’t put such a demand on me. I so love my brother. I feel sorry for him. He is struggling for his very own survival! We, you and I, at least have each other.”

  He tilted her chin with a finger. “That is not enough,” he said thickly. “We . . . must . . . be together!”

  “I must go,” she softly cried. “Although the maids are there to care for my brother’s needs in some respects, he needs me for others. It is late afternoon. I should have left long ago.”

  “The horses?” he questioned. “You didn’t choose a horse.”

  “As I said earlier, Strong Wolf, I didn’t come to choose a horse, only to look,” Hannah said, then slowly smiled up at him. “And I’m not sure yet if I came even for that reason. It seems not.”

  “Never regret what we have done here today,” Strong Wolf said, troubled by his fears of ever loving a woman, or taking a wife.

  Would she find out?

  Would she understand?

  Was there a need for her to know, he wondered. Only one woman knew, and she had only been ten winters of age.

  But even then she had turned her head away with disgust when she had discovered the truth about him!

  Would . . . Hannah . . . do the same? he despaired.

  He believed that Hannah’s love for him was strong enough never to turn away from him.

  And was not her heart big toward her brother’s affliction? Surely if she ever witnessed that which abhorred so many, she would not be repulsed.

  They stepped outside together. A young brave had brought fresh hay for Hannah’s horse. She thanked him as he looked up at her with wide, admiring eyes.

  Then she gazed at the sky. Purple flecks of night were already appearing along the horizon.

  “I will see you safely home,” Strong Wolf said. “Little Sky, go for my horse.”

  The young boy nodded anxiously and left to do as he was told.

  Hannah looked around her at the activity in the village. A large fire was being built in the center. Children were gathering around the fire, laughing and talking, as the pungent wisps of the smoke curled up toward the darkening sky. She watched as some of the children fed the fire more green ears of corn.

  “The children seem so content,” Hannah said, smiling up at Strong Wolf.

  “They should be,” he said, taking the reins of his horse as Little Sky brought his steed to him. “The children are always glad when the sun hangs low in the west. Soon will be the time when old legends are told around the fire.”

  “Oh, how I wish I could stay and hear them myself,” Hannah said, then shivered inside when she realized just how late it was, and how long she had been gone. She trusted that her brother would not be as worried this time.

  Strong Wolf helped her into his saddle. “I see a time when you will be here to hear all of the tales told by the elders, as well as the gossip of the women during the day,” he said, then went to his own horse and swung himself into his saddle. “When we are married, Hannah. When we are married.”

  The thought sent a thrill through her heart, yet again there
was that torn feeling.

  How could she marry him?

  How could she ever leave her brother?

  She rode away with Strong Wolf, smiling at the children who ran along beside her pinto, laughing and reaching up for her. She was envisioning another child that might one day be smiling at her from the crowd of other children.

  Hers and Strong Wolf’s!

  How wonderful that would be, she allowed herself to think.

  Then the moon appeared as they left the village. She had stayed too long.

  Chapter 16

  Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted

  By a doubtful spirit-voice,

  In that doubt’s pain.

  —ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  Hawk had finally arrived at his destination. He had watched the Potawatomis village from a butte all afternoon, and he had not yet seen Strong Wolf or Proud Heart.

  Then suddenly he rose up on his knees and placed a hand over his eyes. Squinting he saw two figures on horseback ride from the village. He knew Strong Wolf well enough to recognize him from this distance. He was riding with a lady away from the village.

  And not just any lady.

  She . . . was . . . white!

  While waiting and watching today, feeling some bonding with the people that he watched, Hawk had felt a great shame over having come this far for only one purpose. How could he do harm to two warriors with whom he had shared some of his youth?

  He had visited their village.

  He had played games with them.

  He had challenged Strong Wolf and Proud Heart often in arm wrestling.

  They had shared equally the victories!

  They had shared in these things until his mother had ordered him against it when they had reached eighteen winters.

  Since then, Strong Wolf and Proud Heart had seen him as someone who might be an enemy, since he could no longer speak with them or join games with them.

  It was rumored, even, that Strong Wolf and Proud Heart had been told that Hawk would one day kill them for his mother!

  He had not denied the rumor face-to-face with them, for to do so would be to go against his mother while speaking with them!