This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

“I didn’t know anyone could have such beautiful white skin and hair so black—blacker than a midnight sky.” His heavy-lidded gaze wandered slowly over her face and hair in loving approval.

“Is it over?” It was a quick, tightly worded question, disillusionment clouding her green eyes.

The look reminded him of a child given a lollipop that promised sweetness and tasted like chalk. A smile gentled the hard angles of his features.

“The pain is over, honey,” Chase assured her softly. “Now the pleasure starts.”

He brought his lips to hers, kissing them softly while his hand cupped and caressed her breast. The sure, steady stimulation by all parts of his body soon persuaded her hips to move in instinctive rhythm with him. Beads of perspiration formed on his upper lip as he sought the right ways to please her and lift her to the crescendo pitch of satisfaction while holding off his own.

Blood pounded through his veins, pulsing molten hot. He began to lose his grip on reality. There were no longer two heartbeats—only one. There weren’t two bodies, but two matching halves coupled in a frenzied reunion. It went on and on for an eternity of minutes until their joy in each other reached a shuddering climax.

Holding her close against him, Chase lay on his back and stared at the dazzling blue sky overhead. Both of them were quivering in a kind of stunned aftershock. His hand was burrowed into the slight dampness of her hair, while she rested her cheek on the hard pillow of his chest. Thoroughly content, he angled his head to see the way she curled against him.

“I was right, wasn’t I? I did give you pleasure.” He wanted to hear her say it, to know beyond any doubt that it had been a shared experience.

She tipped her head way back to meet his eyes, boldly proud, exhibiting no shyness. “Yes.” The simple affirmative answer told him all he needed to know and more.

Chase took a deep breath and forgot to let it out as his eyes ran over this girl who was all woman. In his twenty-two years, he’d known only two kinds of women—the ones you respected, and the ones you didn’t. He dated the first kind and bedded the second. Yet Maggie didn’t fit into either category. She was fifteen going on twenty-six. She had been a virgin when he’d taken her, but there were no recriminating tears in her eyes now. As crazy as it sounded, he had more respect for her now than for the women society indicated deserved it. Chase realized that he didn’t want it any other way.

His arm tightened around her middle to carry her with him when he sat up. He slipped a hand under her knees to lift her into the cradle of his arms as he pushed to his feet. Automatically, she curved a hand around his neck for support. Her glance was curious, but she asked no questions.

Chase stopped beside the upright stick he’d draped his shirt on. “Grab my shirt.”

He waited until she had unhooked it, then carried her to the river, setting her feet down by the water’s edge. Taking the shirt from her, he dipped it in the water, then turned back to her to gently wash the dark stain of lost virginity from between her legs. When he had finished, she reached for the shirt. Puzzled, Chase hesitated before releasing it to her. He watched while she rinsed it, then straightened to wash him. He was moved by the pink color in her cheeks, a sign she was slightly embarrassed by her boldness.

Taking the shirt away from her and tossing it aside, he crooked a finger under her chin and lifted it. She looked into his eyes with a natural directness, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. The smallness of her made Chase feel massive, the protective male instinct surging strong within him.

“Maggie.” All the hundreds of things he didn’t know how to say were wrapped up in that one word. His hands framed her face as he bent to kiss her with a gentle fierceness. Her slender hands gripped his wrists, holding onto him. Reluctantly, Chase lifted his head, unaware of the stirring breeze that swept his shirt into the river, where the sluggish current caught it and carried it downstream. “It’s getting late.” A grim smile touched his mouth as he let her go and walked back to the dying fire.

Pulling on his pants, he didn’t bother to zip them yet and reached to pick up his nearly dry socks, standing on one foot to put them on. He was tugging his boots on when he noticed Maggie watching him, his jacket clutched in front of her for warmth, still naked beneath it.

“What’s the matter?” Chase straightened, raising a puzzled eyebrow.

“You haven’t given me back my clothes,” she reminded him.

The sound of his throaty laughter made her smile. The world had never been more perfect than it was at this minute. Maggie wasn’t sure what she was feeling, except that it was right. Which was why she didn’t examine it too closely, in case its beauty faded like one of her father’s elusive dreams.

Chase’s horse had wandered under the cottonwoods to graze on the tender young stalks of grass growing at the base of their trunks. The trailing reins had kept it from straying very far. It shied when Chase approached. A softly spoken command had it standing quietly while Chase untied the bundle on the back of the saddle. Returning to the fire circle, he tossed the clothes to her.

While she dressed, he walked to the river’s edge for his shirt, not staying to watch her, as she had watched him. Maggie supposed there were some people who would have considered it improper the way she had stared so openly at his physique. But she didn’t understand why it should be wrong to admire a man’s body. Men stared at women all the time. She was tucking her shirt into her jeans when Chase came back, still shirtless, to pick up his jacket.

As he shrugged his shoulders into it, Maggie asked, “Where’s your shirt?”

“It must have been blown into the river and sunk.” He didn’t sound concerned about it, but she guessed he probably had a closetful of shirts. So what was the loss of one? He kicked gravel onto the fire and scattered the embers. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Sure.” She piled her hair under her hat as she walked to the log where she’d left her horse tied.

Chase was in the saddle and waiting for her when she mounted. “I’ll ride with you part of the way,” he said.

Maggie led the way through the trees and up the shallow ravine to the wide, open plains. Facing the broken ridges to the north, she set her horse at a canter. Chase moved his mount abreast of hers. They cut the trampled trail the Shamrock cattle had left and turned onto it. It was a short mile to the boundary fence where strands of barbed wire forced them to stop.

Dismounting, Maggie walked to a wooden post and kicked out the stone, wedging it in the posthole. Drooping wire permitted the post to sag flat on the ground. Chase stepped on it, holding it down while Maggie led her horse across the downed barbed wire. Together, they set the post in the ground again, Chase steadying it upright while Maggie stomped the wedging rock into place. When it was finished, they stood on either side of the fence, postponing the parting a moment longer.

“I’ll be seeing you,” Chase stated, dissatisfied with the phrase, but finding none other that he was willing to say.

“Take care.” She kept her response casual. Standing on tiptoes, Maggie took the initiative and leaned over the top wire, prompting Chase to kiss her one last time.

She turned away from the fence before Chase did, gathering the reins to her horse and stepping into the saddle in a quick hop. As she reined her horse toward the sloping rise to the ridge top, she waved to him over her shoulder, and received an answering salute. She felt suddenly sad to hear the hoofbeats galloping away fro