Wild Splendor

Closing her eyes, she placed her fingers on each side of his hardness. Then slowly, in a testing fashion, she flicked her tongue over the very tip of him. When he placed his fingers at her shoulders and sank them into her flesh as he groaned with deep pleasure, she thought no more of whether or not she should be doing this. She was happy to do something that gave her beloved such pleasure. She wanted to prove to him in many ways the extent of her love for him.

Leonida loved him in this fashion until he urged her away from him, his breathing harsh and guarded. She let his hands guide her in what to do next. First he tossed his breeches aside, and then quickly disrobed her.

“Lie down,” Sage said, gently urging her down on the sheepskin again, the moon silvering her body. “The pleasure will be so intense, you will feel as though you are flying on wings of an eagle.”

Leonida lay as though in a dream beneath Sage as he knelt over her, his hands and tongue moving, touching, and caressing her every secret place. She tossed her head from side to side, biting her lower lip to keep herself from crying out with pleasure as his tongue flicked over the center of her passion, making wonderful splashes of pleasure swim through her.

“Sage,” she murmured, reaching down to urge his head away. “It is too wonderful. Please stop. I want you to make love to me in . . . the other way. I want you to fill me with your hardness. I want to feel it. I want to give back to you, as you give to me. Please? Let us fly on wings together.”

Sage leaned down over her. He took her wrists and put them above her head and held them there. His lips moved from breast to breast, inflicting more pleasure. His mouth rose to her lips and he kissed her long and hard, while below he thrust his throbbing manhood within her.

Experiencing the wonders of how he did fill her, Leonida sighed against his lips. Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around him and moved with him, meeting everyone of his thrusts with a bold upthrust of her hips, not wanting to miss an inch of him as he pushed himself into her, over and over again.

Again he moved his lips from her mouth. This time he pressed his cheek against one of her breasts and closed his eyes as his pleasu

re mounted. Each stroke promised more. The air was heavy with the inevitability of pleasure. He made sure that his thickness brushed rhythmically against her throbbing center, wanting her to feel all of the miracles of love, from moment to moment. He could feel the white heat building within him, traveling in flashes through his body. He held her fingers tightly above her head. He kissed the hollow of her throat as she held her head back, sighing.

Leonida gave herself up to the wild splendor of the moment. She could feel it growing within her, building to something beautiful again. Desire raged and washed over her, and when he began trembling inside her, she felt the same surge of splendor as he, her entire body warming with it as she went over the edge into bliss with him.

Afterward, they lay in one another’s arms. His hands moved slowly over her body, stopping to cup one of her breasts. “You are my woman,” he whispered huskily. “Never again the white man’s.”

“I never was his, not ever,” Leonida whispered back, her hand moving caressingly down his back, stopping at his powerful buttocks. “The marriage had been arranged by my father. I will never understand why I allowed it. I never loved Harold Porter. Never.”

“That is good to know,” Sage said, rolling away from her. He stroked her breast, then rolled his fingers around its nipple, causing it to harden into an even harder peak. “He was not a man I would think any woman could love. He is not a likable man. He is hogay-gahn, bad.”

“I doubt if he ever finds a woman who was as tolerant of him as I was,” Leonida murmured, sighing with pleasure as his tongue took the place of his fingers on her nipple. “Sage, what you are doing to me.”

“Daltso-hozhoni, all is beautiful when I am with you,” he whispered, then once again showed her exactly why she had made the right choice of men. He sent her soaring again with splendor as his tongue skillfully awakened her to many special ways of being loved.

As she lay there, her mind spinning with pleasure, she not only loved him, she adored him.

Chapter 12

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so, to be admired.

—EDMUND WALLER

Smooth hues of pale pink spread across the sky. Hawks soared overhead, shrieking their strange cry, awakening Leonida. She blinked her eyes open and discovered that she was still in Sage’s arms. She wasn’t so amazed that she had slept with him the full night through again, but she was in awe of where they had spent the night.

Her eyes widened when she discovered just how close they were to the edge of the cliff, realizing that should they have rolled away from each other very far during the night, they might have plummeted to the valley below. Then she became aware of the strength of Sage’s arm around her waist and realized that he had thought of the danger and had kept her locked close to him to avoid it.

She gazed up at him, studying him in his sleep, overwhelmed again by his handsomeness, his skin a copper sheen in the morning light, his face so peaceful and rested while asleep, momentarily unburdened of the trials of daily life.

Wriggling free of his tight embrace, Leonida moved closer to his face. Framing it with her hands, she kissed the lids of his eyes, his bold nose, the high cheekbones, and then his sculpted, beautiful lips. Her lips trembled as her kiss deepened, then rapture swept through her when she felt Sage’s arms locking her to him, his lips responding in a crushing kiss, his body pressed against her as he turned her so that she now lay beneath him.

As his hands worked their way up the skirt of her dress, Leonida felt dizziness claim her, wanting him as badly as she had the previous night. She moved her hands down from his face, across his bare chest, and lower still, and dared to touch his manhood through the sleek velveteen fabric of his breeches. He was as aroused as she. As his kiss and his probing fingers became more demanding, she began moving her hand over his hardness, eliciting a lazy sigh from deep within him.

But too soon this was brought to a halt when they heard the sound of a child crying in the distance, back where the others had slept at the camp.

“We will continue later,” Sage said, brushing a kiss across her lips. “Tonight. We will have total privacy in my hogan. Tonight Sage will love you as never before.” He gave her throbbing center another caress with his fingers, then pulled the skirt of her dress down and helped her to her feet.

Her face red and her knees trembling from the passion that had been aroused in her, Leonida half stumbled as she began walking quickly beside Sage down the steep grade that led to the campsite. The cries were louder now, and she could hear excited voices and other people crying, mainly the women of the camp. As Leonida and Sage came closer to the camp, she looked intently ahead, then grew numb inside when she discovered Trevor leaning over Carole, his deep sobs lifting to the heavens.

“Carole,” Leonida whispered. “Oh, Lord, something has happened to Carole.”

She tried not to blame herself for anything that might have happened, or feel shame for having been with Sage in such a wondrous way when it may have occurred. But if Carole was dead, Leonida wondered if she could help but blame herself.