Savage Tempest

“I am there,” Joylynn cried, clinging to him as the most wondrous of sensations claimed her, sending wild ripples of pleasure throughout her entire being.

She was liquid inside, filled with heat and longing. She arched her back, closed her eyes, dug her fingers into the flesh of his shoulders, then cried out as she felt him delve more deeply inside her with his heat. He was thrusting, ever thrusting, his breathing hard as he held his cheek against one of her breasts, then made one more deep plunge inside her. His body quaked and trembled as he spilled his seed inside her waiting womb, while sharp contractions of pleasure knifed through him.

And then they lay side by side, breathing hard, both aware that night had fallen as the full moon cast its white sheen down through the smoke hole and over them.

“It was so wonderful,” Joylynn murmured, clinging to one of his hands. “It was even more enjoyable than the other time.”

“Each time, as you become more relaxed with lovemaking, you will experience something more beautiful than the last,” High Hawk said, reaching over and brushing some of her damp, fallen locks from her cheeks.

“I shall teach you many ways to love,” he said huskily.

“There are more ways than what you have already shown me?” Joylynn asked as she sat up and gazed in wonder down at him.

“Many,” he said, chuckling. “But for now,

there is something else I have planned tonight that I think will please you.”

“Nothing could be better than what we just experienced together,” Joylynn murmured, but when she saw him already rising to his feet to go outside, she followed him. She sat down on a blanket that he spread out before the fire.

She watched him go a short distance away, and her eyes widened when she saw him kneel beside a square-shaped depression that had been dug in the ground. It was covered by a buffalo bull hide that he was now lifting from it.

“What is that?” she asked, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and going to kneel beside him.

She was suddenly aware of a wonderful aroma, and knew that something had been buried there to cook.

“You may have noticed that Three Bears was gone for most of the day, as well as part of the prior night,” High Hawk said. “As a gift for our wedding night, he dug this depression in the ground and lined it with leaves, on which he spread out a large number of buffalo ribs. A layer of clay was spread over this, and over it was built a slow-burning fire. After it burned down to glowing ashes, the fire was covered again in order to retain its heat as it slowly cooked the meat below.”

“He did all of this for us?” Joylynn said, glad to have such a friend.

“Ho, for us,” High Hawk said, continuing to remove everything until he reached the steaming ribs. The tantalizing aroma rushed up from the newly uncovered pit.

Joylynn took the blanket from around her shoulders and spread it out beneath the moonlight.

High Hawk removed two meaty ribs, handed one to Joylynn, then sat down beside her with his own.

As the night songs of crickets and frogs filled the air around them, they ate until they were almost too full to move.

“The rose petals, the canoe, the beautiful tepee, and now this?” Joylynn said, sucking her fingers clean of grease, one by one. “It seems too wonderful to be real.”

She scooted closer to High Hawk.

He slid an arm around her waist and drew her next to him. They both gazed contedly into the moon-splashed water.

“This is a version of Eden,” she murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder. “How fortunate it is that you have found this wilderness valley for your people that has not, until now, known the hand of man.”

“It is a place that I hope is never discovered by whites,” High Hawk said.

“Yet there are two white people among your Pawnee,” Joylynn said softly. “I am one; Andrew is the other.”

“You are Pawnee now, but as for Andrew, I am not yet certain what he is,” High Hawk replied. “He is, of course, white, but does he now have the heart of a Pawnee? He has grown so close to my people’s shaman. If his friendship is pretense, I—”

Joylynn moved to her knees and knelt before him. She placed a gentle finger to his lips, stopping him from saying any more. She would not allow anything to detract from their private, wonderful moments.

“Not tonight,” she said softly. “Tonight is ours, only ours.”

He swept her into his arms and carried her back inside the tepee. There, he laid her down on the pelts, then made slow love this time, so that each of them could savor every moment of this magical night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT