Wild Splendor

“I’d like to take a walk,” Leonida murmured. “I’m too restless to sleep.”

“What bothers you, my wife?” Sage said, releasing her from the circle of his arms, then putting one of them around her waist again as she began walking beside him away from the campsite.

“Although Kit Carson gave his word that he would do everything within his power to assure your continued freedom, I fear that he will become powerless against those who are above him in authority,” Leonida said, frowning up at Sage. “And Harold? Lord, when he finds out that I’ve married you, he’ll be angry enough to bite nails in half.”

“He will get over it,” Sage said.

“He is not the sort to give up all that easily,” Leonida further worried aloud, stepping over a branch that had fallen from a tree, blocking their path. “I’m afraid he’ll come looking for us, Sage. He’ll bring many soldiers. What if he finds us?”

“We are many days ride ahead of him,” Sage reassured her. He stopped and turned, putting his hands on her shoulders and stopping her. “We will soon be at my new stronghold. Once we are there, no one can find us, especially the white pony soldiers.”

“They found your other stronghold,” Leonida murmured, gazing up at him with worried eyes.

“Only because Four Fingers guided them there,” Sage said in a low growl. “Four Fingers is no longer seeking vengeance. He has gone his way, we have gone ours. He knows not of the location of my new stronghold. We will arrive there safely and live there without fear of being discovered. I have chosen well, my wife. Do not show lack of faith in your husband now, when it is most important.”

“I’m sorry,” Leonida said, flinging herself into his arms. “I didn’t mean to show lack of faith in you again. It’s just that I don’t trust anyone else. Especially Four Fingers. Does a man like him ever forget his hunger for vengeance?” She paused and leaned away from him, gazing into his eyes again. “And what of Harold? I fear that he will search for me to the ends of the earth, if necessary. I fear his anger, Sage.”

Sage moved his hands to the nape of her neck and drew her lips to his. “Like I said, my wife, have faith in your chieftain husband,” he said softly. He pressed his mouth against her lips and gave her a heated kiss as he pushed her down onto the ground, her back cushioned by a deep bed of soft pine needles.

Leonida’s arms clung around his neck as his eager fingers lifted her skirt, then sought that damp feathering of hair at the juncture of her thighs.

She spread her legs wide, opening herself to him, unaware that he had shoved his breeches down below his knees. He entered her now with one strong, smooth thrust. He was buried deep, his hips thrusting hard.

Sage slid his mouth from her lips. “Tonight forget everything but your husband,” he whispered against her ear, the heat of his breath causing a tingling sensation to race up and down her spine. “Ride with me to the moon, where we will swing in its half cradle tonight among the stars.”

“My darling, take me there quickly,” Leonida whispered back, breathless as desire spread deliciously through her. She sought his lips and kissed him urgently, her fingers splayed across his hips, urging him endlessly deeper within her.

Sage pulled the tail of her blouse free from the waist of her skirt, then his fingers crept inside it. He moaned against her lips when he found her nipples taut, her breasts as soft as a rose petal against his palms. Then he abandoned her lips and bent low, lifting one of her breasts to his mouth.

His lips closed over a nipple, his tongue flicking around it, drawing a long and sensual moan from deeply within Leonida. He felt the fires of passion spreading through him, tremors of pleasure cascading down his back when one of her hands circled around his manhood as he paused in his thrusts for only a moment.

Withdrawing himself from inside her, he reveled in the touch of her fingers on him and marveled at how she knew the skills so well to pleasure him in this way. He moved his hips in rhythm with her fingers, sucking in a wild breath as he felt the rush of pleasure which meant that he was coming too close to the ultimate of wild splendor. He urged her hand away from him, cupped her throbbing center with his hand, then entered her again with one hard thrust.

Placing his hands beneath her buttocks, he lifted her more tightly against him, making it easier for him to take powerful strokes, filling her more deeply.

Leonida twined her fingers through his hair and pulled his lips down against hers, touching his tongue to hers through her parted lips. Again his hands found the soft swells of her breasts and gently kneaded them. She arched toward him, over and over again. With a groan he met the thrust of her soft body against his.

Then his breath caught and held as he stilled his strokes within her. Their lips parted. He lay his cheek against hers, then resumed his thrusts. The flood of pleasure swept raggedly through him. His loins gave off a great shuddering. He wrapped her within his arms and held her close as their bodies jolted and quivered together, then subsided, exhausted, against each other.

Feeling as though they were the only two people in the universe, Leonida kissed him, and her hands stroked his perspiration-laced skin, making him groan huskily as she closed her fingers around his shrunken shaft.

Sage rolled away from her and stretched out on his back on the cushion of pine needles. He closed his eyes and became lost to rapture as his wife loved him again in ways wonderful to him. He felt content that tomorrow they would be sharing the same sort of bliss in the privacy of the hogan that he would already have built for her in their new stronghold, a place that he had rightfully named “paradise.”

Chapter 31

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Pr’y thee, why so mute?

—SIR JOHN SUCKLING

Harold was beginning to doubt the importance of finding Leonida. Perhaps he was even doubting his sanity for having come out in this damnable heat. The sun was beating down from the heavens this day like a death ray.

He squirmed in his saddle and licked his parched lips. He squinted into the haze that was dancing along the sand that stretched out before the soldiers.

Harold gazed over at Chief Four Fingers, wondering if the Kiowa chief was leading him on a wild goose chase. It was unnatural to place trust in an Indian. The Navaho had been allowed to set up their tents just outside the fort to sell their wares, and look at how they repaid this kindness. Sage had attacked a stagecoach and had taken captives, Leonida among them. Surely he had used some kind of questionable tactics to persuade Leonida to marry him.

Yes, he thought to himself. She was worth traveling through this damnable heat over. He would not give up the search until he had her with him again.