“Good morning,” she murmured, stifling a lazy yawn behind her other hand.
He took her hand, turned it so that he could kiss its palm, then knelt down over her and gathered her into his arms. “It is good to awaken with you at my side,” he said huskily. “Never shall my blankets, or yours, be cold again. As soon as arrangements can be made, we will marry.”
He brushed soft kisses along her brow. “Does that make
you happy?” he whispered against her lips.
“Oh, so very much,” Shoshana whispered back, her arms twining around his neck.
Although the night had been cool and windy, they had slept nude beneath their blankets. They had made love before falling into an exhausted sleep.
She hungered for the same this morning, more than she wished for anything else at this moment.
While he had still been asleep, she had awakened and crept from their blankets to wash herself so that she would be fresh for him when he awoke. Then, tired from her ordeal, she had fallen asleep again.
They had much to celebrate, although their happiness was tinged with some sadness. His sadness was for his mother, whose death had been recalled so vividly by the sight of her scalp. The pain of losing her had begun anew, as fresh as it had been those years ago when he was a boy, soon to walk in the moccasins of a man.
The prior evening his mother had filled his heart and soul as he held her golden hair before placing it in the ground.
Shoshana would never forget the gentleness with which Storm had laid the hair in the small grave he had dug for it.
She would never forget the words of love he spoke to his mother as he slowly filled the grave with dirt, saying that he regretted not being able to place her hair with her body in the ground, but that he knew her spirit dwelled there among the spirits of all the other Apache dead.
Tears sprang to Shoshana’s eyes when she recalled how he had said that his mother and father could now walk hand in hand amid the stars with smiles on their faces, for the man who’d taken his mother’s hair no longer had it in his possession.
Shoshana’s thoughts of these things were stilled when Storm swept aside the blanket that covered her. Then he blanketed her with his body as his hands moved over her soft flesh and his lips came down on hers in a passionately hot kiss.
When he filled her with his heat, she lifted her legs and brought them around his hips, giving him easier access to her.
As they kissed and he held her in a torrid embrace, their bodies moved rhythmically together.
His hands slipped between them. As one hand found a breast, cupping it, the other swept downward and began caressing her where her heart seemed to be centered. She was throbbing almost in unison with her heartbeat.
As their bodies strained and rocked together, strange new sensations were born inside Shoshana, so sweet and wonderful, she realized now that this man she loved would always find new ways to show his love for her.
Delicious shivers of desire raced across her flesh as his lips moved downward and his tongue swept around one of her rose-tipped nipples. His hands now moved to her buttocks, splaying his fingers across her soft flesh and holding her more tightly against him as his manhood moved even more insistently within her.
Storm was in awe of this woman and what she could do to him. His passion for her was like a burning flame. He felt a tremor beginning deep within him and knew that the moment of rapture was near.
He wanted to be certain that she reached that same peak.
He paused and gazed deeply into her midnight-dark eyes. “I have never known such happiness as when I am with you,” he said softly. He reached one hand to her face and slowly traced her features with his fingers. “My woman, it is magic that you have brought into my life. I love you, Shoshana. Oh, how I love you.”
“Before you, I had no idea such love existed,” Shoshana murmured back to him. “It is so magical, Storm. Every moment I am with you is better than any fantasy someone could think up. Oh, Storm, just to think that I fled from you—”
He placed a gentle finger against her lips to still her words. They were together now, and what he or she had done to get them to this point was not important. That they were together, and would be forever, was all that mattered.
“Hush, my woman, and just enjoy these precious moments, for soon we will be facing reality again and I will have difficult decisions to make for my people.” He gave her a lingering kiss, his arms around her, anchoring her fiercely against him as again he thrust into her.
Shoshana felt a blaze of urgency building within her. It stole her breath away. She clung to him as she felt the passion building.
Then they both gasped as the world began to spin around them in silver flames, their bodies coming together as one as they again found that secret place of rapture that only those truly in love could ever know.
Breathing hard, Storm rolled away from her. He closed his eyes and waited for his heartbeat to slow. He was keenly aware of her lips moving over his body, causing the passion to begin anew within him.
But, knowing what lay before them—the journey up the narrow passes, which would be especially difficult with only one horse for the two of them—Storm opened his eyes and smiled at Shoshana. He placed his hands at her shoulders and gently eased her away from him.
“If you continue, my energies will be spent, and I need much strength to get us through the next hours as we travel up the mountain to our stronghold,” Storm said huskily.