Feeling no bashfulness in Spotted Eagle's presence, Jolena did not hesitate as her fingers went to the buttons of her blouse.
"I know I was foolish," Jolena said, unbuttoning her blouse, cringing then as she eased it off, the dried blood painfully adhering her blouse to her sensitive breasts. "But it is so strange. There was this butterfly. It seemed to be teasing me. It lured me onward until… until I lost my footing." She laid her blouse aside and quickly slipped off her skirt, and as the large campfire outside cast its golden dancing light along the inside walls, Jolena gasped, shocked to see just how scratched up her legs were. Blood was dried in streaks up and down her thighs, and she winced as Spotted Eagle began dabbing the blood away with the damp cloth.
"A butterfly lured you into danger?" Spotted Eagle said, giving Jolena a shadowed glance. "You know butterflies well. What was the name of this particular one?"
"I am sure that you know it well," Jolena said, tightening her leg muscles as Spotted Eagle continued cleansing her of the dried blood. "It is called the nymphalid, and it is a butterfly steeped in Indian lore."
When Jolena described the butterfly's destinctive markings, Spotted Eagle stared at her with a guarded look. "You call this butterfly nymphalid?" he said, his voice drawn. "That is the butterfly that lured you to danger?"
Jolena's spine stiffened, hearing the caution in his voice, frightening her. "Yes, I am certain it was that butterfly," she murmured. "I have studied about it. I would not be mistaken."
Spotted Eagle stared at her a moment longer, then wrung his cloth out and leaned closer to her, now softly dabbing the blood from one of her breasts. He ached to cup the breast and kiss its nipple, but instead he simply continued cleansing her wound.
"If you studied the butterfly of Indian lore well enough, you would know that it is a butterf
ly that Indians shun," Spotted Eagle said in a scolding fashion. "In your studies, you would have learned that the nymphalid causes bad luck. It makes people afraid. When it flies out of its pupa, it drops a red liquid like blood from the air. It is a sign of death."
"Yes, in my studies I learned these things," Jolena said softly. "But I don't take things like that seriously. Darling, surely you know myth from fact. The myth that the nymphalid causes bad luck, or is a sign of death, is only that. A myth. I can't allow myself to think that the butterfly caused me to plunge over the edge of the cliff."
As she tried to convince Spotted Eagle, Jolena began to remember how the butterfly had seemed to tease her, not once but over and over again.
A chill rode up and down her spine, as she thought that perhaps she was wrong and that Spotted Eagle was right to fear the nymphalid.
"You will ignore the beckoning of the nymphalid should it try to lure you again into danger?" Spotted Eagle said as he dropped his cloth into the basin of water, then clutched his fingers gently to Jolena's shoulders.
"Yes, I will," she said, then flung herself into his arms, forgetting the soreness of the scratches on her breasts. His fingers now on them, softly kneading, creating fires within her, meant more to her than anything else at this moment.
As he crushed his mouth to her lips and kissed her wildly, almost savagely in the way he moved his mouth over hers, Jolena cried out against his lips and wrapped him within her arms and pulled him down over her.
Frantically, almost desperately, she tried to shove his breeches down across his hips. His need rising for her, Spotted Eagle helped her, kicking them to the side.
Then his hand cupped her mound at the juncture of her thighs, thrusting a hungry finger inside her.
Jolena closed her eyes and sighed as he pleasured her in this simple way, then sucked in a wild breath of rapture when she felt something much better as he plunged his thick shaft deeply within her, magnificently filling her.
Spotted Eagle braced himself above her with his arms, his hands catching Jolena's and holding them slightly above her head as he started his rhythmic strokes within her. He kissed her eyes, her nose, and then her mouth, pressing his tongue through her trembling lips.
Jolena shuddered sensually when their tongues touched and danced against the other, in time, it seemed, with Spotted Eagle's continued strokes, his hips moving, hers rising, meeting him.
Spotted Eagle paused momentarily. He leaned up away from her and gazed with an intense longing into her eyes. "Am I hurting you?" he questioned softly. "Are your wounds too severe for my body to be against them?"
"They are mere scratches," Jolena whispered, leaning up, flicking her tongue across his lips. "What you are giving me is ecstasy." He responded to her as she thrust her pelvis toward him, resuming the strokes that made his whole world seem to be suddenly spinning around him as the passion built like heated strikes of white lightning through him. He held his head back and groaned as she clamped her legs around his waist, drawing him more tightly and deeply into her. He pressed down against her, his hips thrusting hard.
Jolena writhed pleasurably beneath him, scarcely aware of her own soft whimpering sounds as Spotted Eagle's lips closed over a nipple, sucking, biting, licking.
Jolena splayed her fingers across his tight buttocks, hearing him moan as her fingers tightened around him, her fingernails sinking in, mixing pain with pleasure.
Suddenly Spotted Eagle placed his hands at Jolena's waist and rolled with her until he had her sitting astride him, her eyes filled with wanton pleasure as he entered her and began bucking wildly up into her.
Heated waves of pleasure spread over Jolena. She held her head back, her hair billowing luxuriously across her shoulders. As Spotted Eagle's hands cupped and kneaded her breasts, her shoulders swayed in the incredible beauty of her passion, feeling herself drawing near to that joyous bliss of release.
When Spotted Eagle made another deep plunge inside her, and then made many more quickly repeated thrusts as he groaned and held on to her breasts, she relaxed and closed her eyes as the flood of pleasure swept raggedly through them both as he cried out his fulfillment…
Her heart pounding so hard it made her dizzy, Jolena slipped away from Spotted Eagle and lay down at his side. Taking several ragged breaths, she laid her hand over that part of him that still seemed alive as it throbbed against her flesh. Circling her fingers around him, she slowly moved them, his gasp of pleasure proving that he wanted it.
Soon he spilled his seed into her hand, then drew her against him once again, holding her tight. "My woman," he whispered huskily. "My beautiful, beautiful woman. Oh, how you make me alive when for so long I did not even know that I was dead."
Jolena knew that this was the perfect time to question him about so many things, but she did not want to ruin the intimacy of the moment with questions. There would be a more perfect time and place for such conversation. At this moment, she just wanted to cherish being with Spotted Eagleand being alive.