Savage Tempest

“And then you saw me,” Joylynn murmured. “Did seeing me disturb what you had just done? Did my presence take away the purity you found in the sweat lodge?”

“Seeing you was the perfect ending to an evening of prayer and music,” High Hawk said, taking one of her hands. “You make me complete, my woman.”

He leaned closer to her and drew her into his embrace. He kissed her, causing the buffalo robe to fall from her shoulders.

He spread the robe out across the grass, then leaned over her and kissed her again. One of his hands slid his fringed breeches down so he could enter her again, making love this time slowly and sweetly.

The cry of a loon wafted toward them from across the river just as they again came to the final throes of their passion.

Stunned that she had actually made love twice in one day with a man, Joylynn giggled as he rolled away from her, leaving his hand resting across that part of her body that still throbbed from their lovemaking.

When he began slowly stroking her love bud with his fingers, arousing in her a renewed rapturous bliss, she grabbed him around his waist and drew him atop her.

Again they found ecstasy, then lay on their backs, breathing hard, their faces flushed.

“Tomorrow you will be too tired to leave on another hunt for that dreaded outlaw,” Joylynn said. She instantly regretted her words when she realized that bringing Mole into this special moment might have broken the spell that had been woven between her and High Hawk.

When he reached for her and lifted her onto his lap, she knew that nothing could spoil these special moments between them. He sat up, facing the river, his hands molding her breasts as she slowly rocked with him.

“Nothing will keep me from the hunt,” High Hawk said, bending low to brush a kiss across first one of her breasts, and then the other. She closed her eyes and threw her head back in rapture.

Then she realized that he had just said he was definitely going on another search for Mole tomorrow.

She gazed into his eyes.

She took his hands from her breasts and held them.

“My wonderful Pawnee chief, my adorable love, I ask you again, please allow me to go with you tomorrow,” she murmured.

When he didn’t say anything, only drew her close and hugged her, Joylynn decided not to pursue the matter now.

She just relaxed, giving herself up to enjoyment of these moments with the man she loved.

Tomorrow, though?

She would be mounting up along with High Hawk, and would leave the village with him to hunt for Mole, no matter how the women gasped at her bold actions.

They surely had already learned that she was different from most women they had ever known.

That thought made her smile and lean closer to High Hawk and bury her nose in the hair that lay in front of his shoulders. “I so love your hair,” she whispered, slowly stroking her fingers through it.

She gazed up at him. “I . . . so . . . love you,” she murmured, smiling at him.

When he smiled back at her, with such love and adoration in his eyes, her night was complete.

But there was tomorrow, and she most definitely would not take no for an answer when she mounted her horse to join the hunt with High Hawk and his warriors.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It seemed like a dream to Joylynn that High Hawk was actually allowing her to ride with him and his warriors on this newest search for Mole and his outlaw friends. Upon first arising this morning, High Hawk had told her that he had one more place in particular that neither he nor his warriors had yet searched. It had come to him in a dream, which had awakened him with a start.

She was riding on her beautiful chestnut stallion, High Hawk on his best steed. They were far from the village now, after eating a good morning meal. It had to be enough nourishment to last for a while, for once

they began traveling this morning, High Hawk said there would be no stopping. His dream was leading him onward, and he did not want to waste any time.

It was still early; the sun was barely creeping up from behind the trees. The air was crisp, with a hint of the cold weather that was to come.

Joylynn wore a long-sleeved buckskin dress, which was heavier and warmer than doeskin.