Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] (31 page)

She smiled a quivering smile and went to him. Her hands fluttered up and over his smooth, muscled shoulders, and moved down along his ribcage to his narrow flanks. A half choked cry came from him as she stroked the quivering flesh of his belly with her fingertips.

“Once I saw a picture of a statue called
David.
You’re beautiful, like the statue.” She looked up into his eyes and her hands slipped from his shoulders down his arms so her fingers could interlace with his. Slowly, she pulled him toward the bed. “I must have done something good sometime, or God wouldn’t have let me be with you like this.”

He moaned and murmured, “I’ve never truly thanked God for anything before. I do now. I thank Him for bringing you into my life.”

They sank down on the bed, arms holding each other, lips touching, releasing and touching again. If he had hoped for or expected anything, it had not been this swift honesty with which she had offered herself to him. He had had no experience at all with a good woman, only a succession of the other kind. He had not expected this sweet willingness, the astounding passion that lay slumbering beneath her patient innocence.

Her mouth was trembling and eager against his as his hand traveled down her back to the fullness of her hips and pressed her to him. The silky down between her thighs teased his hardened flesh. In a frenzy his heated blood raced to it, swelled it even more, and pulsed there. An inarticulate sound escaped him. He gently turned her onto her back and raised himself on quivering arms to hover over her. His thumb caressed her lips before he kissed her, gently, wonderingly, the touch filled with praise and promise.

“I love you, Vanessa Cavanaugh.” The words were wrung from him, accompanied by a soft moan.

Her murmured reply was lost in his kiss.

Borne beyond constraint, he lifted himself above her and positioned himself between her thighs with firm but gentle insistence.

Almost believing this was a dream and she would awaken alone in her bed, she opened her legs to welcome him when she felt the first firm touch of his hardened flesh probing the moist opening in her body. In the sweet freedom of letting go, she was wholly caught up in the sensations trembling from that secret place. She instinctively lifted her hips to the indriving shaft of pleasure that stole into the enchanted grotto, and her body perceived a gradual, gentle filling where before there had been emptiness.

In a haze of ethereal delight she was conscious of only a slight, swift tinge of pain. Then she was rocking, rocking, borne on a floating rhythm of a mighty wave. Seeking more of the delicious feeling, she thrust upward to envelop his entire length, and her hands slid around his waist, down to his taut buttocks, gripped hard, and pulled him to her, helpless to suppress the unending moan of pleasure that rose in her throat with every surge of his magnificent prodding flesh. She writhed in her search for gratification, and when it came she found she was no longer herself and whole, but a body of many fragments, alive with vibrant sensations. The explosion sent her rising, gasping, upward and onward until all that held her together was the glorious spear that pierced her to her very soul.

Knowing the time had at long last come when there was no need for hesitation, he drowned his burning, bursting body in the writhing sweetness he had entered. Kain felt himself enveloped in a sheet of flame that ignited his every nerve and tissue. He was enclosed in sweet softness, pillowed in a warm and silken place. There was no more thinking, only feeling and a quick, ecstatic, irreversible tempo building toward the consuming release. Then, with only the warm sheath to hold him, he was floating free above the earth, flying and drowning all at once. He felt the heated flow of his life giving fluid spurt from his body in a great flood, filling her. And then he was beyond himself.

His body and mind came gradually back together with his gasping breath. He roused and lifted himself on his elbows, looking down into her magnificent blue eyes. Beholding her perfection and feeling her physical warmth that still enclosed him convinced him that it had not been just a dream. With gratitude he saw that she was smiling at him with worship in her eyes. For a long moment he had courage for no more than silence.

“I think I died and was born again,” he said when he was finally able to speak. The words were whispered against her lips before he kissed them as if he had never kissed them before. “You’ve given me the greatest treasure I’ve ever had.” She could feel his deep voice vibrate against her breasts. “Thank you.”

She pressed her hands against his back when he would have moved from her.

“Not yet,” she whispered. “Please stay.”

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, and when he chuckled a low, loving sound, she felt the tip of him touch her womb. She gave a gasp of pleasure and flexed her hips upward, trying to bury him more deeply.

“Did you like it, my love?” He was amazed and pleased to discover he was fully distended inside her, despite the violent completeness of the act they had just finished.

“It was heaven. I’d heard it was something a woman had to endure.” She laughed softly at the absurdity and wiggled her hand down between them. “You are all the way inside me,” she said with wonderment.

“You’ll be sore tomorrow. I should leave you.”

“Do you want to?”

“God no!” He advanced his pelvis, deliberately letting her feel the hardness of his erection.

“I hope to have callouses . . . there,” she whispered, moving her hands down to his buttocks and kneading gently.

Her brilliantly alive eyes laughed up at him. Her face was damp and flushed and covered with a happy smile. He began to caress her mouth gently but firmly. A little noise came from his throat, and he moved his hips in small circles as gentility gave way to greed. His need was a tumultuous pressure in his groin. His mouth nuzzled her rigid nipples, and she held him, clutching fiercely and stroking the back of his head, loving his weight, his warmth, the throbbing pressure that nudged at her womb.

His movements became frenzied. The pull of his lips on her nipples was both pain and pleasure. He left them to cover her mouth with his. She opened to him in wild abandon, giving her love with a wild recklessness, wanting to make him need her as much as she needed him. She drew him deeper and deeper into her as if she could hold him to her forever, chaining him to her with bonds of warm flesh.

Suddenly and violently her own body began to splinter and fall apart. During her shuddering convulsions he lay rigidly still inside her, giving her maximum pleasure, letting her feel the full impact as each trembling wave washed over her. She keened a quiet, soft cry of rapture as he brought her to an ecstasy far beyond the one of moments before. Finally he could no longer hold himself back, and poured his stream of life into her, his heart pulsing violently. In that final moment he experienced fulfillment, contentment and blazing passion beyond anything he’d ever imagined.

She held him to her with all her strength while violent shudders rocked his powerful body. For an undetermined time she was aware of nothing but his fullness inside her and his weight on her body. Then she floated back to consciousness and found her hands moving across his back, feeling the smooth shifting pattern of his muscles as he moved, feeling his breath on her cheeks. Then she heard the hoarsely whispered, shakily spoken words in her ear.

“You are more, far more than I ever dreamed a woman could be. I feel as if I had come home after a long lonely voyage.” Slowly he pulled himself out of her and slid down her body to lay his dark head on her breast.

He lay quietly and she stroked his hair. Love for him filled her heart. Now that she knew of this pleasure she could give him, and he her, she would banish the hungry look from his golden eyes.

“Am I too heavy for you?”

“I want to keep you here forever.”

“I’m so sleepy.”

“Rest, darling, I’ll hold you.”

She reached for a bedcover, pulled it over them, and brought it up to cover his back. She delighted in the sensation of his warm body on top of hers. The cover closed them in their own private world. Never, never had she felt so safe and so complete. And never had she been more determined that nothing or no one would take him away from her.

*  *  *

When Vanessa woke Kain was sitting propped against the headboard, studying her with an ineffably tender expression, his fingers entwined in her flaming tresses spread out on the pillow. He reached over and smoothed the tight curls from her forehead, and trailed his fingertips down her cheeks, rosy from the roughness of his face.

“Morning, sweetheart.” He put out his arm, inviting her to move up beside him. She did so, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I’ll have to be more careful. My whiskers have scraped your soft skin.” He kissed the top of her head and his hand moved beneath the cover and spread over her soft belly. “Are you sore?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t moved enough to find out.” Aware that she was naked, she pulled the cover up and over her breasts.

“There’s no need to close the barn door after the horse is gone, sweetheart.” He laughed and his arms tightened.

“You’re right, of course.” She let the cover fall to her waist and grinned at him.

“Brazen hussy!” he chided with rough tenderness. “We can ride in to the preacher today, sweetheart. We don’t need to wait until Sunday.”

“There’s no need. Standing in front of a stranger so he can say the words won’t make me your wife any more than I am now. We’ll be married on Sunday. Aunt Ellie is looking forward to it.”

“And you?”

She turned her head and pressed kisses along the smooth warm skin of his chest. “I’m looking forward to every night between now and then.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He lifted her face and kissed her parted mouth. “Thank you for making me happier than any man has a right to be.” His smile fired her with new tenderness. She slid upward in his hold and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you . . . for showing me that mating with the one you love can be the most precious gift God gave to us humans.”

“I brought warm water from the kitchen for you to wash in. I’ll fix us some breakfast while you get dressed. It will be a while before everyone comes in.”

“Kiss me first. It will have to last for at least ten minutes.”

*  *  *

The hours of the day disappeared as if by magic. An air of gaiety permeated the house and all its occupants. Clay went to town to get a steer to barbecue. Jeb and John began clearing the weeds around the house and repairing the gates. Ellie made list after list of things to do, things to buy, things not to do, and things not to forget to do at the last moment. She set Henry and Mary Ben to unpacking the good dishes they had brought from Springfield, and when that was done they took down the heavy, velvet draperies in the parlor and hung them on the line so the wind could whip the dust away.

Before John left the kitchen after breakfast he motioned Ellie to follow him outside. He pressed several gold pieces into her hand.

“When ya go to town, buy shoes ’n ribbons ’n all them folderols fer Mary Ben. Is that enuff?”

“It’s more than enough, much more. One coin will do, with enough left over for dress goods.” She took his hand and returned all the coins but one ten-dollar gold piece. “John, I don’t know how you feel about Henry, but I want to assure you that he’ll always be kind to Mary Ben. He has his limitations, but there isn’t a mean bone in his body.”

“I ain’t got no doubt of it, ma’am. That little gal’s had it mighty hard. She ain’t ne’er had nobody. From what I hear her ma was pert nigh mindless at the end. It jist might be she’ll be the makin’ a Henry ’n him a her.”

“You’ll always be welcome. I want you to know that, and I hope you’re with us for a long, long time.”

He took off his hat and scratched his head. “That’s mighty good a ya, ma’am. I’d kinda figgered to stay round.” He slapped his hat on his head. “I figgered somethin’ else out. I’d better get ta workin’ on that ol’ wagon a mine. Clean it out ’n fix up somethin’ decent to carry you women to town in. I’m thinkin’ of goin’ along ’n buyin’ myself a new shirt fer the weddin’.”

Kain came out of the house with his hat and vest on. “It’s not safe in there, John. We men better stay outside or we’ll get swept up in all the doings. My woman tried to set me at the table to run the flat iron over ribbons for her hat. That’s when I remembered I had things to do, like stretching my legs.” His smile was spread all over his face.

“Don’t stretch them too long or too far,” Ellie cautioned and went back in the house as Henry came out. “Don’t run off, son I need you to bring down that mattress from the attic.”

“I won’t. I want to talk to Kain.”

“Come walk with me. I’m going out to the gate and back. I can stand just so much sitting around.”

“Ain’t it something, Kain? We’re going to get married on the same day.” They were walking side by side down the two-wheel track, the yellow dog at Henry’s heels.

“Sure is. Things have happened in a hurry.”

“I don’t have to ask you so much now that I’ve got Mary Ben. She tells me most everything I want to know. She told me what a whorehouse is and why the man said he come to knock off his rocks. Mary Ben knows about a lot of things.”

“I’m happy for you, Henry. She’s a fine girl. She’ll make you a good wife.”

“There’s something worryin’ me, even if Mary Ben told me not to worry about it. She’s such a little girl, Kain. She only comes to my shoulder. I just worry that when I’m all worked up, you know, that I’m too big for her.”

“You’ve talked to her about it?”

“Oh, sure. We talk about everything.”

“If she told you not to worry, don’t worry.”

“But I can’t help it. I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.”

“I see your mother has a large jar of plain salve. Dip some out and put it in a small can and keep it in your room. If you’re afraid you’ll hurt Mary Ben, use some of it, and you’ll be able to enter her more easily.” Good God! Kain thought. He was actually giving a lecture on sex. Was that what he would have told his son someday?