Tallchief for Keeps (17 page)

“Pretty…?” He
tensed, the moonlight shafting over angles and taut muscles and cords that ran down his arms to his fists. His feet locked to the pool of moon-light on the old braided rug. The heavy muscles of his legs stood out in relief; his desire jutted into the silvery light, startling Elspeth. Or did her body startle her, desire streaking through her, cords igniting, clenching, heating?

A shudder ran down Alek’s body. “I can promise not to hurt you…but I can’t promise to forget that night completely.” His voice was ragged, rimmed with naked, deep emotion.

“You won’t hurt me. I ask that you try to forget.”

He took a step. “They say you inherited both seer and shaman powers. What do your senses tell you about me, Elspeth?”

She already knew. “That whatever happens, you will try to please me.”

“I will be careful.” His promise came firm and raw.

“Do and I’ll kill you.”

Alek’s grin was slow in coming. “Now, that’s my girl.”

For a moment, Elspeth was startled. She’d never been anyone’s girlfriend; she hadn’t allowed the possessive tone from anyone, not even her brothers. She found herself blushing as Alek came to the cot and stretched out slowly beside her, his hands behind his head. She lay there, the shawl drawn to her chin, and wondered what to do; her confidence of moments ago had vanished.

“We can lie here and admire your
weaving technique, or you can simply take me…I’m yours,” Alek murmured, his body heating her side like a furnace. He lifted a challenging eyebrow at her. “Lost the mood? Have a headache?”

“You’re taking up all the space.” She couldn’t breathe. Alek smelled like soap and man, his heat warming the shawl. Her breast brushed his arm, and he tensed. Alek tugged her over him and wrapped his arms around her. Beneath her, he was all hard power and vibrating male, hot and rigid against her stomach. One hand stroked her bottom leisurely while his other hand prowled dangerously close to her breast.

He tugged at the shawl. “You wouldn’t want it damaged, would you?”

She drew the shawl from between them and let him take it. His eyes flicked down her body; his features hardened, a flush rising up his cheeks. There was nothing sweet about Alek, nor in the desperate way he wanted her.

“What now?” he asked with interest after tossing the shawl to a folding chair. “Ready to make your move?”

Elspeth settled closer, placing her flushed face in the shelter of his throat. Alek’s hand smoothed her side, lingered along her ribs, then rose to cup her breast. “You’re trembling.”

He kissed her forehead, her lids. He tasted
her gently, brushing his lips across hers, tempting her. She could have killed him for being so tender…for taking time to place protection between them. For trembling so badly that he ruined his first effort, cursed and had to try again.

Elspeth smoothed the taut cords of his neck, his shoulders and the hair covering his chest. As her fingertips brushed his nipple, Alek went taut, shivering. His look at her was fire and desperation, his body burning hers.

She lay quietly as he moved over her. “Open for me, Elspeth,” he murmured when her thighs trembled, then closed against his intrusion. “It’s all right, love. We’ll do what you want, when you want.”

Braced away from her, Alek ran his hand down her side, pressing his fingers into her softness, lingering on the curve of her thigh. The night breeze coursed through the window’s curtains, bearing the scent of the mountains, an elemental blend of time and passion, and Elspeth gave herself to it, allowing Alek’s touch to open her legs.

He held very still, then bent to
place his lips upon her throat. “Your heart is leaping out of you. You can touch me.”

She placed her hand on his chest, and beside her throat, Alek’s mouth curved into a smile. He nipped the side of her jaw. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant.”

He cupped her breasts, cherishing them, lifting them to torment with gentle bites and then catching the peaks deeper, suckling her until she cried out, holding him to her.

He tensed as she moved, his body intimate against hers. She accepted the tip of him, holding her breath, and fought the slight pain of his intrusion. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

There was pain, but she wouldn’t let him leave her, not now. Elspeth pressed her legs against his hips, her face hot against his throat. “Don’t leave me.”

Alek groaned and, when she raised her hips slowly, taking him fully, he cried out, trembling. This was what she wanted, Alek close to her, a part of her, despite the slight pain.

His body began to move, hips thrusting
down on hers, filling her. She held her breath, aware of the mechanics of sex and yet startled that he desired her.

“Elspeth!” Alek’s hushed shout tore from him, his hands clamping on her thighs.

Elspeth smoothed the heavy muscles of his shoulders, rested her palm over his racing heart.

“Elspeth-mine…” Alek struggled for breath, and Elspeth shivered as her body heated, moistened and tempted. Her nails dug slightly into his flesh as she bent to kiss the scar running across his shoulder and the one slicing his eyebrow. Her breasts dragged slowly, softly against his chest, the hair sensitizing her nipples, hardening them. The new sensation caught her, and she moved beneath him.

“Elspeth,” Alek began, and stopped when she kissed the scar on his bottom lip. He groaned and held very still. “Do not move. Just don’t move.”

He trembled, cords standing out in his arms, his throat, his body barely joined to hers. Alek’s fist wrapped in her hair, turning her face to him. He took her lips deeply, answering the savage need. He shook violently, trying to lie still, his hands braced at her head. “Don’t you dare move, Elspeth.”

His desperation was a challenge that she took, lifting her hips to capture him.

She’d forgotten, the weight and
heat of him stretching her, and fought the cry tumbling from her lips.

Alek muttered a frustrated curse, then he found her breasts, kissing and suckling them quickly now, his body urgent; the sound of her hunger came, shocking her. This was Alek, Alek soothing her, caressing her, telling her—telling her what? She’d captured him, run him down through the years and tethered him. Elspeth rose to find his face, the pounding within her too loud to hear his words. She stroked the scar on his eyebrow with her thumb and slid her fingers through his hair, locking his to hers. She lifted again, her body taut and pounding, but she had to see him, to watch him move through his passion. Alek was beautiful above her, his face all rugged angles and tense cords. His eyes were brilliant, black and hot as he lifted his hips slightly. He stretched her gently, filling her until she cried out again.

His body plunged into hers, and she tossed him back. Again. Then the frantic, desperate rhythm began, Alek breathing as if his heart had run the fastest race, as if he ran to the edge, waited for her and then shot off into the heat. His cry came from the depths of his soul, as if he’d shattered there, lodged in her.

Just beyond her reach, whatever she sought taunted her. Alek drew her shaking body to him, his heart pounding beneath her cheek. He ran his hand down her back, caressing her and then covered her with a quilt that had warmed other lovers.

Elspeth snuggled close to him, mourned the moment of separation and sighed as Alek kissed her. She gathered him to her; for the moment, he was hers and the shadows were gone.

Una’s shawl moved in the night, the moonlight playing over the shimmering colors, the fringes swaying gently in the breeze.

When the Marrying Moon is high, a
scarred warrior will rise from the mists to claim his lady huntress. He will wrap her in the shawl and carry her to the Bridal Tepee and his heart. Their song will last longer than the stars….

For a moment, Elspeth fought tears and wished the shawl’s legend was true.

Eight

A
lek allowed Elspeth to slip from the cot. He fought the urge to drag her back to him—as if he had the strength to do anything but drag air into his lungs and regain his sight.

Elspeth had taken him and left the shawl as if it meant nothing to her. As if making love with him meant nothing.

He lay in the shadows, his arms behind his head, winded, filling his senses with their past lovemaking. Beyond his window, Elspeth’s screen door creaked, and the night settled around him.

Alek rose to study Elspeth’s dark house; there was no light. She liked moving through shadows, becoming one of them. He reached for a bottle kept on his dresser and poured a quick neat whiskey. He hadn’t had a drink since December—when he’d first seen Elspeth in Talia’s wedding picture—and he badly needed one now. The glass was halfway to his lips when Alek realized that Elspeth had not climaxed in his arms.

Nor had she on that night in Scotland

She’d accepted his passion, soothed him later, but she had not fully entered the fire….

Alek sat abruptly, locked his fist to the sheets bearing Elspeth’s scent and shook his head to clear it.

He began tracing their passion. He’d been
intent on her pleasure that first time, then had lost himself and gone over the edge. He plopped the whiskey glass down on a stack of magazines and licked a drop from his wrist.

Alek forced himself to breathe. Melissa had been more like his sister than his wife. Their lovemaking had been tender and sweet, and Melissa had been shy their entire marriage. They’d been cautious, wanting children, but when wasn’t he blazing a career in foreign wars? He’d known the moment he’d poured himself into Elspeth that he’d given her the deepest part of his being….

Elspeth wasn’t sweet; lava ran beneath the surface. Yet she had waltzed through their lovemaking twice, never experiencing the full measure. Her heat ran just below the surface untested, and his body knew it.

Alek lay back carefully on the cot, bracing the glass on his naked stomach.

Elspeth had had him and left him. She’d gone back to her safe shadows and left him with the shawl, a reminder that she kept her secrets, and the Tallchief legend, to herself.

Preoccupied with the wrongs done to him and
feeling fragile, Alek almost admired the curses boiling out of him. He threw the glass against the wall, glared at the shards mocking him in the moonlight and lurched to his feet.

He jerked on shorts and stepped out of his window and onto the huge oak-tree limb. Two more limbs, and he was within jumping distance of Elspeth’s roof.

He stepped into her bedroom window and listened to the sound of her shower. Alek waited, prowling in the room scented of her and the lily of the valley blossoms in the old vase. Moonlight filtered through the window, running across the bed’s old, hand-stitched quilt. He scooped her blouse and slacks from the bed, caught the scent of their lovemaking and crushed the material in his fists, flinging it to a chair. Because their precious daughter was about to be exposed—her cool veneer ripped away—Alek draped a lacy handkerchief over the framed portrait of the Tallchiefs.

Elspeth entered the room in a scent of soap and lavender. The sight of her naked body—breasts tilted high, the dip of her stomach, the curve of her hips—caused him to suck in his breath. Alek’s hand latched to her wrist. “I don’t like being used.”

She turned on him, damp hair flying around her bare shoulders. “What?”

Alek stood back and kicked the door shut with his heel; he crossed his arms, fearing that he’d shake her. There was no kindness roaming in him now for Elspeth Tallchief. “What just happened in my bed?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Anytime you want to play games, honey, just let me know the rules first, okay? You wanted to exorcise that night. Get rid of me, then come home, tidy up and forget the whole thing happened, right? Well, it did. It happened with me.”

She frowned and backed up a step when he advanced. “Of course it did”

Alek picked her up and tossed her to the
bed, following her down. He held her damp hair in one fist and braced above her. “It goes like this, Elspeth. When you come calling for me, plan to share breakfast with me.”

She moved beneath him, the scent of her soap sending him precariously near taking her right then. He studied her. She wasn’t afraid; rather, a keen anger had begun to brew. Good. He could deal with her anger, not her fear of him.

She shivered, control skimming along her voice. “Alek, I didn’t know there were rules to this.”

“You thought you’d just wander over, have a bit of sex with old hungry Alek, lay there, let him take—” Alek bit off a curse, then continued. “You come home, take a nice shower and drop off to sleep, right? Or was it more like, “I think I’ll give Alek whatever he wants and then he’ll go away.’ I’ve never been a nice guy when I want something, Elspeth darling. Don’t count on my sympathy.”

He was just getting wound up. He wanted Elspeth to understand everything boiling out of him. “You play hardball, Elspeth-mine, and I don’t like it.”

He’d never talked to a woman like this, pushed her, held her forcibly still beneath him. Of course he loved Elspeth Tallchief—that was a given—but a man had his pride. He’d just realized that he’d never given Melissa the deepest part of him, poured into her everything that he was, that he would be.

A fresh tide of anger and frustration
ripped through him. Elspeth’s face registered shock. He bent nearer to hear her whisper. For the first time, Alek began to realize that Elspeth had no idea of true fulfillment.

“It wasn’t like that at all.” Her lips quivered in the moonlight, and Alek bent to taste them. “I thought—”

“You thought you’d complete the circle and this time
you’d
walk away, correct?” he shot at her, his heart raw and exposed.

Alek found himself hard, wanting her. Elspeth eyes widened as his desire lay upon her stomach. “Oh, yes. I want you again, Elspeth-mine. I ache with it, hard. Not a little ‘Oh, I think I’ll get this off my calendar,’ but damn hard, right down to my toes and back up to the pounding in my brain, not to mention other parts of me. Baby, this time, you can come along for the journey, too.” Alek smoothed his hand down her leg, enjoyed the rippling of her muscles as she tensed and followed them back up to the soft, fragrant center of her.