Beyond The Horizon (13 page)

Shannon swallowed convulsively. She searched Blade’s dark face for the space of a heartbeat before obediently lifting her arms so he could slide her dress over her head. Blade’s hands shook as he slowly bared Shannon’s body. He’d dreamed often of what she would look like naked, fantasized holding her in his arms, loving her, burying himself in the tight, hot folds of her woman’s flesh. He knew it was forbidden him, tried not to think about it. But now that it was about to become a reality he felt stimulated, aroused and so excited he couldn’t stop shaking.

“My God, you’re incredible!” Blade said reverently. The satiny expanse of milky white flesh he had just exposed left him speechless. Blade had seen more than his share of nude women, but none so lovely as Shannon. Her breasts were high, the nipples full and rosy, as ripe as summer’s first fruit, as sweetly tempting. Her legs were long and supple; her body expressly made for loving, for countless hours of leisurely exploration.

With more tenderness than he thought possible, Blade cradled her breast with his palm, eliciting a gasp from Shannon. Her breath came with ragged quickness that only increased when his thumb played lightly over her pink-hewed nipple. They rose impudently, causing Blade to grin with easy arrogance.

“You like that?” he asked. His arms slid tightly around her and his mouth replaced his hand on her breast. Her body went rigid and hot, and soon she was certain her flesh was melting as he sucked her nipples, first one then the other.

“Y… yes,” Shannon admitted with a pang of guilt. “Oh God, yes!”

His mouth left her breast, his tongue slid up her neck to her ear, leisurely exploring each curve and crevice, making her thoughts fly off in tattered confusion while his hands shifted up and down her back. Then he found her mouth and the briefest of seconds passed as his gaze locked with hers. All her senses seemed to freeze until she was overwhelmed with sensation.

The tip of Blade’s tongue moistened the corners of her mouth, urging her lips apart, but Shannon did not understand. “Open your mouth, Little Firebird,” Blade whispered against her lips. Then his tongue intruded into the sweet dampness of her mouth. His kiss was fiercely demanding, yet so tender Shannon scarcely realized she was kissing him back; his arms were iron and stone, yet so gentle she welcomed the pressure.

Shannon felt his hands on her breasts, caressing the naked flesh, his palms rough and painfully exciting against the hardened nubs. His kiss was like nothing she had ever experienced; his previous kisses mere child’s play compared to this invasion of her senses. Overwhelmed and frightened by the sensations and feelings scattering her wits and stealing her will, Shannon made a valiant effort to control the course her life was taking.

“Blade, no, I’m frightened!”

“Relax, Little Firebird, you’re doing beautifully,” Blade crooned in her ear. “Don’t think, let your body speak for you. It tells me what you like, see?” he said, taking her hand and placing it between her legs. “Feel how wet you’ve become? It tells me you are nearly ready.”

Then he was kissing her again, dragging her down into the pit of swirling passion. When she tore her mouth from his, he groaned with disappointment, thinking he had frightened her with his unbridled lust. “Shannon,” he groaned, “let me, let me…”

His fingers dug into her hair, pulling her lips back to his. If anyone had told Blade that making love to Shannon would be such exquisite delight he wouldn’t have believed it. His body straining for desperate relief, Blade dragged his lips from hers, waiting for his passion to subside so he could continue. He’d promised Shannon pleasure, and he was a man of his word He used the brief respite to shed his trousers, and when he came back to Shannon she felt the hard thrust of his manhood against her stomach. Overcoming her shyness, she dared to glance down, not too frightened to satisfy her curiosity.

“Look to your heart’s content, Little Firebird,” Blade said. His voice shook with wry amusement and he gave her a grin so wicked she felt a shiver of excitement run up her spine. “I want you to know what is going to give you pleasure.”

With a desperation Shannon refused to question, she pulled Blade down atop her. She felt herself go hot and liquid at the feel of her distended nipples against his own hard male nubs. And then his hand was between her legs, against her soft woman’s flesh, stroking, probing with bold command and tender concern. The heat of his touch swirled over her in searing, liquid fire. He caressed her boldly, deeply, setting up a rhythm that seared her; the pad of his thumb against her tender flesh left her weak and gasping and she pushed against him when the sensation became sweet agony.

“Yes, Little Firebird,” Blade rasped raggedly, no longer able to contain his rampaging desire. He couldn’t remember when a woman had affected him as profoundly as Shannon. What made this feisty Southern belle different from any of the other women he’d bedded? Blade wondered. “Open your legs, Shannon.”

Shannon froze as his huge hot shaft probed between her legs. How could she go through with this? she asked herself in a brief moment of sanity. She couldn’t. “No!” she cried, shaking her head from side to side. She jerked backwards, trying to escape his relentless prodding, but it was too late …too late …

“Yes,” Blade answered, having come too far to turn back now.

He moved gently, slowly, deeply into her. She felt herself fill and stretch with the hugeness of him. A sharp pain between her legs brought Shannon surging against him in an effort to dislodge him. Nobody warned her it would hurt so much! A gasp of agony left her mouth.

“Blade, I can’t bear it!”

He covered her mouth with a searing kiss, waiting for the pain to ebb to a slow burning. He hated hurting her, but it couldn’t be helped. No amount of gentleness could erase the pain a girl felt when she was led into womanhood.

A low, rough moan burst from Blade’s throat as her hot, moist flesh closed tightly around him. He entered fully now, one quick thrust that made her his, sliding slowly in and out, deeply, sweetly, using all his strength to delay his own release until Shannon found hers.

“You’re mine, mine, mine,” he whispered savagely.

Once the pain subsided, Shannon experienced a pleasure so intense that she had to bite her lips to hold back a scream. She never counted on anything like this, never realized such feelings existed or were even possible. Then her wits scattered as Blade suckled and licked her nipples, every stroke of his tongue sending fire running wildly along her nerves to that place where he rocked within her. The feeling Blade was creating drove her inexorably toward something … something….

“Blade, what’s happening to me?” With desperate yearning she clutched at the firm bronze flesh of his shoulders.

“I feel it, too, Little Firebird,” Blade groaned. Incredible awe tinged his words. “Concentrate. Think of nothing but what I am doing to you, of how I feel pushing inside you. God, you’re magnificent! So tight and hot and—and—sweet. Sing for me, Little Firebird, croon your song of love.”

His words, so erotic, so arousing, propelled Shannon deeper into ecstasy, her soft moans swallowed by Blade’s mouth. “Hurry,” he whispered urgently against her lips. “Oh, Shannon, I don’t know if I can wait.”

Lost in the maze of her fragmented thoughts, Shannon heard Blade’s words but didn’t know what they meant. Yet her body strained toward a goal, a place where she had never been before. Then, amazingly, just when she despaired of ever finding it, she was there. Her body shook with the effort, her limbs trembled and she arched against him, driving Blade over the edge. He shouted in exultant ecstasy as he plunged deeper inside her and gave up his seed.

“Mine, Little Firebird, mine,” Blade repeated as he collapsed against her in perfect contentment.

Chapter Seven

B
lade fell asleep instantly, but Shannon had too much
to think about to allow sleep to claim her. She had just experienced something so incredibly profound she was confused and excited at the same time. How could a half-breed savage bring her such extraordinary pleasure? she wondered. Was it possible with any other man? Somehow she doubted it. At first the sinfulness of the act had overwhelmed her. Was claiming her virginity really necessary to save her from Mad Wolf and captivity, or had Blade seduced her with his erotic words and blazing passion in order to satisfy his lust? Well, thanks to Blade she was no longer a virgin, but now she was free to leave Yellow Dog’s village and get on with her life. She could forget about Blade and what he did to her. She need explain her loss to no one but her husband, once she found one.

Utterly exhausted, Shannon closed her eyes, tauntingly aware of Blade’s naked warmth pressed intimately against her own nude body. She tried to hate him, needed desperately to salve her enormous guilt over her wanton behavior. But somehow she couldn’t hate a man who might possibly have saved her from a fate worse than death. Then Blade stirred and reached for her again.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he asked. His lazily, knowing smile infuriated Shannon. “You should be tired.”

Shannon flushed, his words reminding her of the wild abandon she found in his arms. “I—I’ll be able to sleep once you leave,” she replied, stumbling over the words.

“I want to love you again.”

Shannon’s blue eyes grew wide with alarm. “It’s not necessary. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Thanks to you I won’t be required to lie to Yellow Dog and the council. Please leave.”

“What I did was for your sake, though I admit I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed anything more. You’ve put a spell on me, Little Firebird, with your siren’s song and sweet surrender.”

“I did no such thing!” Shannon hissed, his words provoking her to anger. She had no intention of repeating her grievous sin. “Why do you call me Little Firebird?”

“Don’t you like the name?”

Shannon looked confused. “I—I don’t know.”

“It fits, you know. I’ve thought of you as Little Firebird for a long time. There is a fire in you that beckons to me; I can’t resist the flame that burns within you. Now that I have been scorched by it, I can’t seem to put out the blaze.”

Abruptly Blade rolled over and kissed her, his mouth stifling her angry tirade. When she was sufficiently quiet his lips strayed from her in ragged passion to fall against the arch of her throat and downward, his mouth now encircling her breast, his tongue sweeping against it, bringing a startled, anguished cry from her lips. He did not demand a response, but instead drew it forth so expertly that Shannon found it impossible to cling to her resolve to deny him the surrender he craved.

She felt his masterful nudge between her long legs as he rolled atop her, and the deep sliding push of full possession. Then Shannon was lost to the magic he wove around her senses.

Afterwards she lay still, a flood of hot tears slipping from between her closed eyes. The first time Blade made love to her had been for necessity’s sake, but this—there was no excuse for this except pure lust. If she didn’t hate Blade before, she certainly had reason to now. She felt used and degraded. She was angry, damn angry. She opened her eyes and glared at him, fire glittering in their stormy depths.

“Get out of here! Haven’t you done enough to humiliate me? You’re loathsome—an animal, a—a—savage!”

Blade’s eyes blazed like shards of black glass, sharp and piercing. “You enjoyed that as much as I did. Don’t expect me to apologize for something that gave us both pleasure.”

“I forgave you for the first time, Blade, but when you did it again you passed the bounds of decency. Granted you may have saved me from Mad Wolf, but I could only give my virginity once.”

“It is much too late for recriminations,” Blade said tightly.

Realizing that there was no placating Shannon in her present mood, Blade uncoiled his lean length and rolled to his feet. Granted, he shouldn’t have made love to Shannon a second time, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d do it again if he didn’t get out of here fast.

The sight of Blade clothed in glorious nudity nearly took Shannon’s breath away. She tried, but couldn’t take her eyes from his thickly muscled torso and taut buttocks as he pulled his buckskin trousers up his long sinewy legs. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them he was standing beside her. His skin was like oiled bronze, mellowed by the soft glow of firelight; the heavy muscles in his arms, shoulders and thighs rippled with repressed power.

“What are you waiting for?” Shannon hissed. She desperately needed to banish Blade from her sight in order to erase him from her mind. “Go!”

“Shannon, I—” His hand reached out, then dropped helplessly to his side. “Try to understand. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

It was amazing how her legs shook and yet were able to hold her up, Shannon reflected. At first light, Singing Rain had appeared to tell her she had been requested to appear before the council at high noon. It was a request she didn’t dare disobey. When the time came, Singing Rain accompanied her, bolstering her courage when she needed it most. Blade’s solid presence beside her helped, but not enough to stop her from trembling.

Dressed in ceremonial robes, six elderly men, including Yellow Dog, sat in a circle smoking and talking. Silence fell when Shannon stepped forward. As if on cue, Mad Wolf took his place on one side of her while Blade stood on the other. She felt her knees buckle. Sensing her terror, Blade reached out to steady her.