| Excerpt
Hand in hand, Laura and Grey Wolf walked through the tall grass. Hearing a fiddle strike a tune, she slowed her steps and looked up the line of wagons to where a crowd gathered around a blazing bonfire.
"Are they having a special ceremony?" he asked.
Laura shook her head. "It's not really a ceremony."
"When I approached your camp, I overheard your aunt. She wants you there."
She glanced at his hand encircling hers. A sensual current rippled up her arm as he rubbed his thumb back and forth over her fingers. Her gaze lifted to his face. "I'd rather be with you." Their eyes held, and for a moment, their silence said more than any spoken words could. Then Grey Wolf clasped her hand tighter and led her away from the wagons.
When they reached a spot bearing a lone cottonwood, he knelt down and indicated for her to sit on a mat of short, tufted grass beside him. An owl hooted from a branch high overhead. "Except for him, we are alone," he said, smiling.
Laura sat on the ground and curled her legs under her full skirt. Her heart pounded so hard she was certain Grey Wolf heard.
"You smell like summer flowers," he said. He hooked a finger under her chin, his gaze on her lips. "And I am drawn to the nectar." His mouth lowered and he kissed her lightly. Then coaxing her to lie back, he stretched out beside her and slid his forearm under her head. He kissed her again, this time his open mouth covering hers fully. Several times he drew away, only to return, each kiss more demanding than the one before.
Cocooned in the warmth of his embrace, Laura slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders, feeling his heat through the buckskin shirt. Beneath her palms, his corded muscles flexed and tightened. Her fingers delved into the thickness of his long hair, and she breathed in his maleness. Her whole being reeled with the look, the strength, the scent of him.
He circled a hand at the base of her throat, his thumb skimming over her throbbing pulse. He lifted his mouth from hers and while holding her gaze captive, he lowered his hand over her blouse and cupped the swell of her breasts.
Dear Lord, she shouldn't allow him to touch her this way. It could only lead to intimacies she knew little about. But as Laura stared with longing at him, an unbearable, instinctive need welled up inside her. Tomorrow this man whom she cared for deeply would be gone. Before he left, she wanted more than empty dreams to remember him by. She searched his face as he looked at her in silent expectation. David. Yes, the name suited him. And tonight she would give herself to him.
Clinging to his shoulders, she thrust herself upward so he could hold the fullness of each breast. A deep groan emitted from his throat as he responded to her invitation.
Passion fueled the fire burning inside her. She wanted his heavy touch without the constraints of her blouse hindering the feel of his strong hands. Somehow reading her thoughts, he began to undo the buttons. But numerous and small, they were difficult to work free. Nudging his fingers aside, Laura unbuttoned the rest, then sitting up, stripped off the blouse.
Grey Wolf placed a gentle hand at her side. When he turned her body to face him, he drew in his breath as he scanned her bare shoulders and cleavage above her camisole. Laura knew the three-quarter moon lent more than enough light to see her.
He took hold of one of the thin straps and slipped it off her shoulder. She shuddered when his fingers glided down her arm. Lowering the other strap, he watched the garment fall to her waist. His heated gaze swept across her breasts, lingering a moment before he reached up and pulled out the two combs holding her hair in place. Thick tresses tumbled over her shoulders, the ends fluttering in the warm evening breeze and tickling her flesh.
"Ne-peva-tamaahe," he said.
Laura tilted her head questioningly.
Grey Wolf laid the combs on the ground, and then pulled her down beside him. Braced on one elbow, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, "You are a beautiful woman." He laid a callused hand over one breast and cradled its roundness in his palm while his soft lips skimmed the side of her neck.
Laura closed her eyes, delicious tremors swirling inside her. She set her hand over the top of his, reveling in the feel of him holding her so intimately. Her nipple tingled beneath his coarse fingers, becoming hard and erect. She rolled closer, her other breast aching to be touched and held the same. As Grey Wolf's responsive hand stroked her flesh, a satisfied moan escaped her lips.
Lost in the magic of his loving, Laura draped her arms around his neck allowing his hand to move down her waist. At the same time, his mouth and tongue mated with hers, delving and devouring, their pleasures building with breathtaking intensity.
But as he gathered her skirt off her thigh and slipped a hand underneath, the sudden memory of Slade forcing his hands up her dress flashed through Laura's mind. Instantly, she stiffened. Breaking their kiss, she pulled back and looked into Grey Wolf's face. The understanding she saw put her mind at ease even before he spoke.
"Do not be afraid, Bright Eyes. I want only to bring you the pleasure your body craves as much as mine." He lowered his head and swirled his tongue around the tip of one nipple, then crossed to the other and suckled gently to the rhythm of her heartbeat.
Laura relaxed, the stars blurring overhead as a warm darkness engulfed her. "David ... oh, David," she murmured.
Grey Wolf lifted his head and stared down at her. "Why do you call me that?"
Laura blinked up at him, confused by the sudden harshness in his voice. "David? It's your name."
" Was my name." He flashed her a chilling look of disdain. "Was!" he repeated. He abruptly rolled away from her.
Suddenly cold in places where she'd felt warm only seconds ago, Laura sat up and shrugged back into her camisole. "What do you mean?" She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "It still is."
"No! David is not my name. It was a child's." His stone-grey eyes bored into hers. "A child who died with his family fifteen years ago. He is a memory," his gaze drifted past her, "part of a nightmare I have tried hard to forget."
Laura watched the torment cloud his face as he stared, unblinking and unseeing, into the darkness. Now she knew. His family had died. But how? Were they killed by the Indians? Maybe the very Indians who captured him? Oh Lord, how she wished she could ask him. Then she would understand the kind of suffering he'd been put through.
In one swift motion, Grey Wolf rose to his feet. "We should go back," he said in a monotone voice, schooling his expression to hide the turbulence Laura knew festered beneath the surface.
She hurriedly buttoned her blouse. It wasn't supposed to be like this, she lamented. She had wanted him to love her, and to love him back. It was to be a night to remember. Their night.
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