“Go on to the camp,” Sage ordered his warriors. “I will spend time with my wife, then come to camp myself. I alone must explain to our people why it is necessary for me to leave them again before we venture onward to our new home. I must explain to them the need to rid our lives, once and for all, of the threats of the white pony soldiers led by Kit Carson.”
The warriors nodded and rode onward.
“I left my blanket beside the stream,” Leonida murmured as Sage sank his heels into the flanks of his horse, riding onward at a soft lope.
“Take me to it,” Sage said, reveling in this moment, with her snuggled close, her breasts pressed against him. For a while she would be the only thing on his mind. Later, he would think about the dangers of riding into the white men’s camp—if, indeed, he could even find their camp—while they were on their way back to Fort Defiance with their Navaho prisoners.
“How is Pure Blossom faring?” he suddenly said, realizing it was impossible to think only of his wife.
“She is growing gradually weaker, yet today she took broth almost eagerly,” Leonida said, pointing as the stream came into view. “My blanket is over there.”
“We shall make use of it,” he said huskily.
“We shall sleep there?” Leonida teased, smiling up at him.
He drew his steed to a halt. He slid easily from the saddle, then reached for Leonida. She moved into his arms, and when her feet touched the ground, she clung to him, her fingers at the nape of his neck, urging his lips to hers.
Their kiss was feverish with desire. Leonida leaned into his embrace, feeling the heat of his passion as he pressed his manhood against her. Even through the fabric of her skirt, she could feel how large he was in his arousal.
She slipped a hand between them and stroked his throbbing member through his breeches. His husky groan quivered against her lips, urging her onward.
With trembling fingers she crept to the waist of his breeches and began lowering them. As they finally fell around his ankles, leaving himself fully accessible to her, she wrapped her fingers around him and began moving her hand in rhythmic up and down strokes.
The pleasure mounting, stealing his breath away, Sage placed his hands at her waist and began lowering her to the blanket, yet giving her room to still maneuver her hand on him.
His head spun, and afraid that he was reaching that plateau of heightened passion too soon, he eased her hand from him.
?
?It is better used elsewhere,” he said, lifting her skirt and lowering her undergarment in one quick movement. “Woman, open yourself to me. Let me love you.”
A delicious languor stole over Leonida as he entered her and began his rhythmic thrusts. His eager mouth came to hers and forced her lips apart, his tongue touching hers as he kissed her.
Surrendering herself, Leonida trembled beneath his touch as he lifted her blouse, his hands soon claiming her breasts, enfolding them within his fingers. He kneaded her breasts, his thumbs lightly caressing the nipples.
Happiness bubbled from deep within, and she shook with building sensations when Sage slipped his mouth from her lips, his tongue now moving maddeningly in circles over her breasts, while his hands traveled lower, teasing and stroking the supple lines of her body.
His eyes glazed with desire, Sage stopped his strokes within her and drew back far enough to be able to look at her as the moon crept out from behind a cloud, silvering her body with its splash of light.
“You are more beautiful than the loveliest of butterflies,” he said huskily. He ran his hands up and down her fiery flesh, then stroked the center of her passion between her thighs. “You are softer than the petal of a rose.” He kissed the hollow of her throat, drawing a hungry sigh deeply from within her. “You taste sweeter than honey found in a bee’s hideaway.”
He buried his throbbing hardness deeply inside her, kissing her hungrily as he filled her over and over again with his swollen, aching need of her. His senses yearned for the promise her body was offering him. He locked his arms around her and drew her closer, her body responding as her hips moved in sinuous hollows against his hunger.
Leonida’s heart was pounding as surges of warmth flooded through her body. Her whole universe seemed to be spinning, the sensation rising up and flooding her whole body.
As his kiss deepened, she drifted and floated, then gave herself up to the bliss of the moment as she went over the edge into ecstasy, his body thrusting wildly into hers, proving that he had just followed her there.
Afterward, they dressed without many words between them, having been thrust too soon back into the troubles of the real world. Sage took his horse’s reins and led him toward the camp. Leonida beside him.
“Tomorrow will come too quickly,” she murmured, giving Sage a downcast glance. “I don’t want to say good-bye again. Each time I do, I fear it might be the last.”
Sage looked at her with a troubled expression. He knew full well that he might never return this time. What he was planning to do might even be considered tempting death.
Chapter 25
My life and all seemed turned to clay.
—JOHN CLARE