Perfectly content, feeling as though she belonged, heart and soul, to this man, and glad of it, Kaylene watched the shadows on the ceiling.
“I never knew that loving a man could be this beautiful,” she murmured.
Fire Thunder leaned up on one elbow. “Do you realize that you just admitted to loving me?” he said, placing a finger to her chin, turning her eyes to him.
“Do you think I could have shared what we just shared had I not?” Kaylene said, devouring his handsomeness with her eyes. “I fought my feelings until I knew I could not fight them any longer.”
“But you are still my captive,” Fire Thunder said, drawing her lips to his, brushing them with feathery touches of his tongue.
“If you say so,” Kaylene said, giggling.
“I never want to let you go,” Fire Thunder said huskily. He lowered his mouth to one of her breasts. She moaned when his tongue swept over her nipple, flicking against the swollen, pink nub.
“Keep on doing that and I wouldn’t leave if you ordered me to,” Kaylene said. Her insides swimming with pleasure, she sighed. She held her head back and closed her eyes.
“And so I have found a way to master you, have I?” Fire Thunder said, as he placed a hand to her waist and turned her to face him.
He drew her body next to his so that her breasts would be crushed into his chest.
“Perhaps,” Kaylene said, then lay her cheek against his. “How can this be? How can I love you? Why do you love me? There are many beautiful Kickapoo women in your village. Why, I think that Running Fawn is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I’m surprised that you haven’t noticed.”
“I have noticed and I have stayed away from her purposely,” Fire Thunder said, gazing down at her as she gave him a quick look. “She is trouble. And I even warn you to be wary of her and that which she might wish to pull you into doing. You have heard the gossip about her and her wanton behavior with Mexican men. When it is discovered to be true, she will be badly punished.”
“But I do like her so much,” Kaylene murmured. “She was so quick to befriend me when no other people of your village would.”
“Just be wary of her is all that I can say,” Fire Thunder warned again.
Kaylene eased from his arms. She smiled at him. “I must know the full secret behind those blue eyes of your,” she said. “They are so beautiful, yet I am surprised that you, being an Indian, would have such eyes. You earlier mentioned being part French. How much?”
“Only a fraction,” Fire Thunder said. “It goes way back many, many winters, when one of my kin wed a Frenchman. But it is such a small portion of me that is French that I look to myself as full-blood Kickapoo.”
Kaylene stretched out on her stomach beside Fire Thunder. She snuggled against him. “So often, since I have come to your village, the more I am around your people, I have felt a strange yearning,” she whispered. “It is as though I am part Indian, myself. Do you think that perhaps, in my other lifetime, I was? What if it were true, Fire Thunder? Wouldn’t that make your people look to me as someone worthy of their chief?”
“You are worthy because I say you are,” Fire Thunder said, reaching a gentle hand to her cheek. “And, yes, just perhaps somewhere in time you were Indian. If it pleases you to think it, think it often. It would be good to see you enjoy this life that I have brought you to.”
“You have adapted well to living in Mexico, haven’t you?” Kaylene asked softly.
“Yes, it was made easy for us by the Mexicans,” Fire Thunder said. “They gave each family a piece of land, as well as seeds to plant our first crops. But as you know, our true wealth lies in our longhorns.”
He shaped his body more fully into hers. “But, my beautiful woman, as for me, personally, the cattle now come second to the woman I love,” he said huskily.
He cradled her in his arms and kissed her with a lazy warmth that left her weak.
How could she have ever hated him? she wondered to herself. How?
She had never felt as alive, as loved, as needed, as now, while with him.
She prayed that nothing would happen to give her cause to regret these wondrous moments with him.
Chapter 15
Let us possess one world;
Each hath one,
And is one.
—JOHN DONNE