Wild Thunder

His hard body against hers, the way they were locked together, so sensually, made a flood of emotions overtake Hannah. How could she have lived before him? She had not known that such paradise existed on this earth. Her breath quickened with pleasure as his lips brushed her throat, and he sank his mouth over a breast, his tongue flicking the nipple.

“I adore you,” she whispered, her face hot with her building passion. “I love you. I shall always love you.”

Strong Wolf gazed into her eyes and swept damp locks of her hair back from her face. “You are mine forever,” he whispered.

He once again claimed her lips with his in a heated kiss, his tongue thrusting between her lips, touching hers, the fires of his passion burning, spreading, heating up his insides like an inferno.

“More,” Hannah whispered, hardly recognizing her voice in its huskiness, or herself, in her brazenness. Her voice quivered emotionally with excitement. “Don’t stop. Love me. Fill me more deeply. I need you! Please, Strong Wolf. More!”

Responding to her need, the very air charged with their building pleasure, Strong Wolf plunged himself more deeply into her pulsing cleft, feeling the clasping of her moist inner flesh. He gripped her shoulders. His mouth brushed her cheeks, her ears, then lightly and tenderly kissed her eyelids.

“My woman,” he whispered into her ear. He felt his temperature rising, her spasmodic gasps proving that she was nearing her own sought-for release.

He pressed his cheek against one of her breasts and fell back into a wild, dizzying rhythm inside her, his breath filling the morning air with its gasps of pleasure.

“Now!” Hannah cried, feeling the familiar sensations that came moments before finding total ecstasy within the arms of her beloved. “I feel it. Oh, Strong Wolf, now!”

She clung to him as she became overwhelmed with pleasure, the spasms of his body proving to her that they had reached the ultimate of pleasure together.

Afterward they lay together, clinging, breathing more easily. Hannah was suddenly aware again of the birds in the trees overhead, of the soft spiraling of the sun as it laced its way through a break in the trees, and of a distant voice of frogs vibrating from the thickets that grew down into the stream.

“I really must go,” Hannah said, easing gently from Strong Wolf’s embrace. “I promised Chuck that I would study the journals again today. I . . . I . . . just can’t seem to understand their entries.”

Strong Wolf grabbed her by the wrist and brought her down beside him again, but only to give her one last kiss. He kissed her, then rose with her from the blanket and dressed.

“One day soon you will not have to think of journals,” Strong Wolf said, sliding his fringed, buckskin breeches up his muscled legs. “You will be my wife. It will be good to know that when I come to my lodge, you will be there.”

“Always,” Hannah said, going to him, running her fingers over his chest. She leaned down and flicked her tongue over one of his nipples, smiling when she heard him suck in a wild breath of pleasure.

“My woman, do you wish to return to your brother today?” Strong Wolf said, taking her gently by her shoulders, leading her away from him.

“Yes, I must,” Hannah said, eyes innocently wide.

“Then, do not torment this man who will soon be your husband by sending his heart into another spinning,” he said, laughing softly. He bent over, grabbed his shirt, and quickly had it over his head.

“One day soon I shall torment you all I wish,” Hannah mocked as she finished dressing. “For I will be with you both day and night. I shall torment you mercilessly with my kisses and caresses.”

She ran her fingers through her hair in an effort to remove the tangles, then gasped with pleasure when he drew her against the hard frame of his body to kiss her again.

She gyrated her body against his, wanting more, regretting having to leave him. “I need you,” she whispered, her one hand feeling his own need through the fabric of his breeches. “Should we, perhaps, wait awhile longer?”

“No, it’s best not,” Strong Wolf said. He eased her away from him. “You go your way. I will go mine. Soon our paths will not have to cross, but come together as one. We will only say good-bye for short intervals when I am gone to tend to the duties of my people.”

Sighing, Hannah watched him shake the blanket out, then fold it and return it to his parfleche bag. She walked then to her buggy and climbed onto the seat.

Taking up the slack reins, she gazed over at Strong Wolf as he swung himself into his saddle.

“We don’t dare kiss good-bye,” Hannah said, knowing that to even touch him again would most certainly alter her plans for the day.

“No, we dare not kiss again,” Strong Wolf said, smiling at her. “Nor even touch. Good-bye for now, Hannah. We will be together again soon.”

“Yes, soon,” Hannah whispered as he wheeled his horse around and rode away from her.

Now familiar with the land, Hannah knew her way back to her brother’s ranch. She had only a short way to go, already at his pastureland.

She gazed in the distance at her brother’s ranch house, admiring it. Then she looked at the outbuildings and gazed at the bunkhouse. She could see several men mulling about there, and thought of Tiny.

“The weasel,” she murmured. “But how on earth am I ever to get my brother to fire him? Even this last incident probably didn’t convince him that he is up to no good. What is his hold on my brother?”