Sioux Slave (17 page)

Kimi could feel his hard arousal against her belly. By sheer determination, she pulled away from him. “No, take your passion to the girl you just bought.”

“I will not take orders from my woman,” he thundered. “Trust me. I don't intend to keep her. I–”

“You expect me to believe that?” She faced him in a fury. “Every woman in the camp knows you bought her. They are snickering at me behind their hands.”

“Kimi, you're behaving like a jealous schoolgirl. However, that's what I did for getting involved with such a young–”

“I don't want to hear your forked tongue lies. I return to my mother's lodge.” She backed away from him.

He looked so angry, it scared her. “All right. When you come to your senses, return to our tipi, otherwise, you can sleep in your mother's lodge. What will the Lakotas say to that?” He turned and strode away.

Kimi started to call after him, stopped herself. Although it hurt her, she knew that enemy girls were sometimes passed around by their captors. Should she listen to what he had to say? Obviously he was going to use the Pawnee girl for his pleasure whether Kimi liked it or not. Kimi would have to decide whether she was going to accept this or leave Hinzi.

A Sioux woman was allowed to divorce her husband. But she had seen the looks in other girls' eyes when they looked the big white man over. There would be many willing to take Kimi's place, even if he kept the captive as a second wife until he traded her off to some man who wanted her ripe body.

She fled, headed as far away as she could get. Near the creek, she paused and leaned against a tree. What was going on back in Hinzi's lodge with that Pawnee girl? Kimi didn't even want to think about it.

Rand's cheek still stung as he turned his back on Kimi and walked to his tipi. He swore under his breath. Damn the jealous little chit anyway! She hadn't even been willing to listen to reason and probably wouldn't have believed him anyway. Well, he owed her no explanation. He'd give it more thought tomorrow when she had cooled down. In the meantime, let her sulk in her mother's lodge all night and think the worst of him.

He flexed his wide shoulders, then stooped and entered his lodge. The Pawnee girl sat there before the small, flickering fire, and she was naked, the light playing on her soft curves. She rose up from the fur robe and smiled at him. “I have been waiting for you, master. I can't thank you enough for buying me.”

She was beautiful. Rand tried to avert his eyes. “I didn't buy you for the reason you think.”

Her shoulders slumped and her face saddened. “You don't find me pretty?” She stood up, turned around slowly, displaying her lush charms.

“I find you very pretty,” he admitted, and his body reacted at the sight of her nakedness. “But I didn't buy you for that.”

She paused, looking sad. “You will make me whore for you? Very well, even that will be better than being used by those three filthy traders every night. I will earn you much and maybe once in a while, you, too, will make love to me,”

He didn't answer, looking at her ripe curves as she moved toward him. As much as his pride hated to admit it, his mind desired Kimi, but his body didn't know one female body from another. This girl belonged to him and was willing. He was aroused, his breath coming deeper as the girl crossed to him. The Pawnee girl had a fine body. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend she was Kimi. He might as well be guilty of what Kimi had suspicioned.

The girl slipped her arms around his neck, a little unsteady on her feet. She kissed him and he tasted whiskey on her tongue. “The white traders force it down my throat,” she murmured, “otherwise I could not bear to go through what they do to me every night. With you, it would be different.”

He started to tell her he didn't want her, but she kissed him again and rubbed her bare breasts against his naked chest. Rand took a deep, agonized breath. His whole groin felt on fire. It took all the resolve in him to pull away from her. “No, I have a woman already.”

The girl laughed softly, looking up at him. “Your body makes a liar out of you!”

Indeed his traitor manhood was rigid, throbbing with desire. “I have a woman,” he said again.

“Then where is she?” The girl challenged. “I am here and willing to do things to you no woman has ever done before, teach you ways of love I have learned from many men.”

She lowered her head and ran her hot, pink tongue across his nipples until he gasped and held her wet mouth hard against his chest, fighting for control. He was shaking all over, struggling with himself. He could have this girl, she was more than willing, and Kimi would never know. This lustful rutting could be over in a couple of minutes.

The girl laughed softly and kissed her way down his chest to his belly as she sank to his knees. He wore only moccasins and a brief loincloth. Surely she wasn't going to ... ?

With almost superhuman effort, he pulled away from her. “No.” Why was he denying himself this pleasure? He must be three kinds of a fool.

The girl sighed, stepped back. “You are a fool, white Lakota, to be loyal to the jealous, stubborn chit.”

He didn't even want to think about her words. They might make too much sense. “I bought you to set you free. Can you get back to your people?”

She blinked, her pretty face puzzled. “You ride with the Lakota and you set an enemy Pawnee girl free? It is too much to expect.”

“Nonetheless, that's what I intend.” Rand nodded, “It made me sick to imagine what those traders had put you through.”

At that point the girl lost her composure and began to sob. “I was lured away from my people. Lucky promised me I would be his woman. I did not know until it was too late that he would lend me to his partners and make me earn money with my body from any man who had the price.”

Rand frowned, feeling desperately sorry for her. He reached out and gently stroked her hair. “How are you called?”

“They call me ‘Brown Sugar,' but my Pawnee name is Kirit.”

“Kirit, if I help you get out of this camp tonight, do you have a place to go?”

She looked up at him, tears on her face. “My brother has a friend riding with the soldiers' Pawnee scouts. He might be at Fort Berthold. Even Lucky does not know this. Maybe I can find my brother through him.”

Such a lovely body; such a waste,
Rand thought, but he only picked up her shift and tossed it to her. “If I give you a horse and send you out of this camp, can you find your way to that fort?”

The girl nodded. “I think so.” She slipped the shift over her head, put on her moccasins. “I'll ride out the opposite side, away from the creek so Lucky won't follow and recapture me.”

Rand took her hand and led her outside into the darkness. The whole camp was asleep. Even the traders' campsite across the creek was quiet. He was three kinds of a fool, Rand thought, not to enjoy both Indian girls until he figured out a way to return to civilization and his elegant fiancée. Sometimes he was too noble even for a Southern gentleman. Chivalry could be the only reason he was spurning this girl's amorous offer, he told himself.

Carrying a small canteen and a little pack of pemmican, Rand led the girl quietly across the camp in the opposite direction of the creek. He led her to Kimi's pony. “Here, Kirit, let me help you up.”

For a split second, she was in his arms and she reached to kiss him. “Good-bye, yellow-haired warrior. I wish I could stay with you forever.”

She clung to him, molding herself against him. With great difficulty, he forced himself to pull away from her. He put her on the pony's back and handed her the food and water. “Go now and find your people,” he said. “Forget about the nightmare you have endured and find yourself a good man.”

She gave him a long look. “I
found
a good man. But he does not want me.” She looked off toward the creek. “I only regret that I do not get to take revenge on Lucky.”

“Sooner or later, justice will be done,” Rand assured her. “Go now and remember that all things are in the hands of Wakan Tanka.”

She nodded and rode away at a walk. Rand watched her silhouette growing smaller in the moonlight. Wakan Tanka, indeed. He cursed softly, slapping a quirt against his leg. He was even beginning to think like an Indian.

Kimi. What was he going to do about her? He turned and walked back to his tipi. He had humiliated himself enough by going to her mother's lodge once this evening. He should throw away this little white savage who made him forget who he was, forget his cold, respectable fiancee, forget everything but coupling with her like an animal. If she were going to be angry with him, let her. Since when did Rand Erikson have to beg a woman for her forgiveness or favors? This luscious woman-child had made him lose his pride. She had made a fool of the heir of one of Kentucky's wealthiest families.

She was a fever in his blood, but eventually men either recover or die from fever. He must begin to think about recovering, putting this whole impossible adventure behind him, returning to Kentucky to pick up the pieces of his former life. He flexed his broad shoulders, trying to reduce the tension he felt. Rand went into his tipi and lay down on a buffalo robe. For a long time, he couldn't sleep, angry with Kimi, knowing she was over at her mother's lodge sulking when she could be here in his arms. Finally he dropped off to sleep.

 

 

Kimi leaned against the cottonwood tree, staring at the shallow water of the creek. She had been here for only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours. What was going on in Hinzi's tipi? She didn't even want to think about that oh-so-grateful enemy girl making love to him. Should Kimi swallow her pride? Could she bear to lie in that tipi at night after he had made love to her and watch him mount that other girl? Her mother was right; Hinzi was a virile stallion of a man. No doubt he could keep two women serviced and satisfied.

She heard a twig snap and looked up, startled. In the moonlight, she realized it was the tall trader, Lucky.

“Ah,” he smiled at her, “I scared you? Didn't mean no harm.”

She took two steps back, a little uneasy.

He made a soothing gesture with his hands “I was out havin' myself a smoke. What are you doing out alone, sweet stuff? You should be safely asleep in the arms of your man.”

“My man is the one you sold the Pawnee girl to.”

He laughed softly. “A little jealous then, are you?” He scratched his chin and looked out across the camp. “No doubt at this very moment, he is enjoying the taste of Brown Sugar. She is very skilled at pleasing men–not the innocent she was when I took her from her people.”

Kimi didn't want to hear about it. She turned away from the trader, imagining Hinzi lying between that girl's thighs, kissing her, running his hands over her.

Behind her, Lucky said, “I tried to trade for you, sweet stuff. Maybe now you wished you had not objected?”

“I must get back,” Kimi said, uneasy at the turn his conversation was taking.

He caught her arm. “Don't run away, pretty thing; I won't hurt you. While your man is busy with that Pawnee girl, why don't you earn a few pretties for yourself? He'll never know the difference.”

She turned and glared at him. “I don't know what you mean.”

He grinned. “Sure you do. Come back to my camp. For a few minutes of your time, my friends and I will give you many beads and ribbons. Now do you know what I mean?”

Kimi grimaced as the images he hinted at came to her mind. For the first time, she had a little sympathy for the enemy girl and thought of her as an unfortunate woman instead of a nameless enemy. “No,” she shook her head, “Hinzi would kill you for it.”

He laughed easily. “I think the white warrior is too busy with Brown Sugar's charms to even know or care what you do for the next hour. How did a pretty half-breed like you get into this camp, and what's a white man doing living among the Sioux?”

Kimi didn't answer. If he reported having seen Hinzi, would the soldiers come and take him away? “You must not tell that he is here,” she said urgently.

He ran his fingers up and down her arm “And what will you give me, sweet stuff, if I promise I won't tell?”

The hair seemed to rise up on the back of her neck as she realized what he was demanding. She didn't even like the feel of his dirty hand on her arm.

“Maybe I can give you some ponies.” Perhaps her mother might be persuaded to part with the ones Hinzi had given her.

Lucky laughed. “Don't need any ponies. Just a kiss,” he wheedled, moving closer, “just one.”

A kiss. Maybe she could stand that. Could she trust him to keep his word? She should go tell Hinzi what the trader threatened. Then she paused as she realized the Pawnee girl was no doubt keeping Hinzi too busy to interrupt him at this moment.

“Just one little kiss,” Lucky murmured. Even as she hesitated, he reached out and pulled her into his embrace. She opened her mouth to protest, but his own covered hers, his wet tongue slipping between her lips.

Sickened, Kimi struggled to pull away. Lucky was strong from years of surviving on the frontier. He held her more tightly, crushing her against him all the way down both their bodies. His sweaty hands ran over her, his mouth on hers so hard that he cut her lip and she tasted her own blood. She managed to bite his mouth and he hit her across the face, cursing. “I'll teach you, you little slut!”

Half-dazed, Kimi tried to cry out, but now he had his hand over her mouth. She fought to get away from him, knowing she was no match for his strength.

He laughed softly. “I ain't called ‘Lucky' for nothin'. Pretty Injun slut, you will now take Brown Sugar's place. By the time anyone realizes you're gone, you'll be many miles from here. Your man will think you've run away in a fit of jealous rage. What he won't know is that besides me and my two friends, you'll earn much money for me as a whore among the tribes and around the forts!”